


Heartache by the Number or Birds of a Feather

by Kamato



Series: Caravans, Guns, and Old World Religions [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Coincidental Naming, Courier centric, Drug Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Nudity, POV Character of Color, POV First Person, Semi-Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamato/pseuds/Kamato
Summary: Part one of a non-chronological memoir series depicting some of the most important memories belonging to Courier 6, named Maria Trujillo, as transcribed decades after the fact by a ghostwriter. This is draft 1.5, and I don't know if I'll update with more polished writing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'll put a note at the beginning and end of each chapter, delivering warnings of sensitive topics covered in the following chapters. This one contains discussions of murder, drug abuse, rape, foul language, slavery/indentured servitude, abuse of power, sex, and some cryptic bullshit at the end that I won't explicitly explain. Please don't ask me to.

A woman had her face between my legs, my thighs quivering beside her ears. Her eyes, the heart-shaped bed’s covers, and her talent had me entranced, but after she finished, or more accurately, finished me, she climbed up onto the bed with me, sighing, and wiped saliva and effluvia from her mouth with the back of her hand. She gave me a sweet smile, and glanced down at herself, tugging her nightie up to cover up her breast again, then tugging it down to be enticing, but not totally revealing. 

 

I chuckled. “Why are you covering yourself up, now? You just ate me out, don’t you think that modesty is a little bit gone at this point?”

 

She shrugged. “Maybe for you, but I can get more work done this evening. You only get a little while longer if I’m doing this for free. Plus, you asked me to tell you about myself, and you just got the full experience of what my job is. It’s a big part of me.”

 

I laughed again and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. I half expected her to recoil, with me being sweaty and one of her rules being, “no kissing,” but she leaned a little bit further onto my arm, and she looked tired. Under her eyes, I saw shadows, and supposed that her makeup must have smeared while we were being a tangled mess. “Joana, if you’re doing this for free, then you deserve more than just some asshole looking to get off. What do you want me to do?” 

 

As she looked away, thinking, I recalled the several ways I’d learned how to please a woman, expecting her to want her work to be reciprocated. Then she said, “Tell me what you do. I heard you’re some courier, but I’ve also heard you’re dangerous. That, sometimes, you hurt people who don’t always deserve it.” My expression darkened, but she tried to backtrack, saying, “I’m not judging you! It’s not like I’m some saint, heh. I just want to know more about what you do, and about you.” 

 

I let my eyebrows rise back into a comfortable position, but my mouth stayed twisted down, unpleasant thoughts and memories rising to the surface. “Well, I’m from New Reno, I guess. I don’t like that place, don’t want to associate myself with it.” I let out a rueful chuckle, looking up at the dimly lit ceiling. “I was born into a literal shithole. My mother didn’t know she was pregnant, just that she’d been feeling sick and her flow had been light. So, when I was being born, she thought she needed to shit.” I shot her a grin at her slightly disgusted look. “Luckily, she still wanted me. Plus, her main man wanted a kid at some point, anyway.”

 

Though she gave me a grin and said, “Good. I’m glad for you,” I could tell from her expression that Joana was now reflecting on her no doubt awful childhood. I decided to speed things up.

 

“Turns out they weren’t the best people to be parents, so I got out of there. Made my way south working with the caravans, and by that point, I was sixteen. My mom and dad had taught me how to use guns, how to carry a lot, and how to take a hit, so I was a good pick for the caravans.” I lifted up my left hand, the index finger missing the last knuckle. I pinched it between two fingers. “I lost that in my first gunfight, when I was seventeen. Raiders in the southeastern, expanding part of the NCR tried to raid the caravan I was working on.” 

 

Joana cocked an eyebrow. “Why was someone that young in the dangerous part of the country when you could be working further north?”

 

I shrugged. “They paid well. I shot well. I hardly thought of raiders as more than bogeymen. That, and I wanted to be as far away from New Reno as humanly possible.” 

 

“Your folks were that bad, huh?”

 

I shook my head. “No, they were fantastic by New Reno standards. It was New Reno that was that bad. I even sent them a couple of letters from out on the road to let them know I was okay. Anyway, I worked the caravans until I was nineteen, but usually a bit further north than where I’d gotten shot.” 

 

She let out a humored chuff through her nose. “Probably smart.” By then we’d worked our way up the headboard to sit next to each other. 

 

“Heh. Yeah, probably. Anyway, I got tired of NCR bullshit, and took another caravan job in the southeastern parts of NCR, wild parts. Independence, a little village, had just been annexed. I met a girl there, Oriana. We settled down. Farmed, scavenged, helped to partially divert a river. Whatever the community needed, we just did it. We just, you know. Helped.” I scoffed and let out a sigh. “Lived there until I was twenty five. Five years. Best years of my life.” I let out another sigh and considered leaving, but then Joana’s hand started drifting across my abdomen. 

 

“I could do that, you know. Tell me what she did to you.” She leaned in closer to me, whispered in my ear, and I shivered as she stroked my inner thigh. “You can say her name when I fuck you, if you want. I don’t mind.”

 

Her hand started to play across my thigh towards my crotch, but my hand snapped forward and I seized her wrist, tighter than I meant to. Looking back at her face, I saw fear, but then I let go, an apologetic expression on my own face. “Sorry. The story’s not over, and the rest of it doesn’t lend itself to a sexy atmosphere.”

 

Joana took a breath and turned back towards me, her face a little more somber. “What happened, then? Why aren’t you in Independence? More raiders kill your girl, did she cheat on you?”

 

“Nope. NCR happened.” Bitterness clouded my tone. “They got pissed that we partially diverted the river to keep our fields yielding. Said that San Francisco and Shady Sands was having water problems because of us. So they evicted us, diverted the river back to the cities. Didn’t give a shit about us, only let us gather enough water to make it to a nearby settlement, which itself would dry up without the river.” As I said this, the bitterness diluted somewhat, until I said, in an even tone, “I became,” I paused for a moment, looking for the word, “revengeful.”

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her brow furrow, worried. “What do you mean? 

 

“Five soldiers came to Independence, along with a sixth man, name of Harrison.” I watched my hands sitting in my naked lap as I kept on. “Harrison came alone the first time, and we told him to piss off. Then he came back with his five soldiers, and they forced us out of town, and we were nearly two hundred people, but nobody wanted to kill anybody.” My hands curled into fists, and my frown deepened. “Maybe they did. But nobody had the resolve to do it. Not even me. Not at first.” My expression softened and my hands relaxed. “I wandered with Oriana and a few others from the town for two months. Wandering in the sun will do funny things to your head. I couldn’t get past it. Then raiders attacked, but we fended them off. They had a few sticks of dynamite.” 

 

“I don’t think I like where this is going.” I looked up, a slight scowl on my face, and she looked like she wanted to cower. “You can keep going, though.”

 

I returned my eyes to my lap. “I took the dynamite. The next town we stopped in, it turned out Harrison lived there. He was off duty. Had a cozy little house, a wife, a cute kid. I confronted him, and he said he was just following orders. Oriana was with me. He offered to treat us to dinner, by way of reparations, and we accepted, but I didn’t, not really. I’d been doing things to my body, in an effort to keep the revengeful thoughts out of my mind.” I laid my left arm across her lap, track marks in the crook of my elbow and old crisscrossing scars along the forearm made visible by the light. I traced four scars, along the middle of the forearm, with my fingernail. “It was a bad idea. I put these four on me the night we were supposed to have dinner. A plan had been rolling around in my mind, and I thought I could resist it, but I couldn’t. So I drugged Oriana’s water, kept her asleep while I enacted it.” 

 

I looked back up to Joana’s face, and saw a familiar kind of fear in it, the kind that Oriana wore when I came back the following morning. “Harrison, he invited a couple of the soldiers, too, the guilty ones. The ones that felt it, at least. I wore a heavy jacket, both to cover up the dynamite I wore in it and to soak up the blood on my forearm. I acted. I ate his food; I’d been on the road long enough to know you can’t waste food. I laughed at his jokes, and when he and the two soldiers that had come gave their formal apology, I nodded and said I forgave them. Then I excused myself to the restroom, and had a glance around the rest of the house, and snuck out of the bathroom window. First, I had to toss my jacket and the dynamite out, then I had to climb out, myself. Window was small. Left a little blood smear on the sill. It didn’t matter, though. I put on the bandana and I got to work, placing dynamite where the supports held it up. I had enough dynamite, though, that I could have blown the place up without any planning.”

 

Shooting out of the bed, Joana started for the door, but I snatched my pistol from my gun belt where it’d fallen on the floor while we fought to undress me, and pointed it at her. Her eyes widened, and she stopped, her hands by her head, ten feet from the door. “Joana, you’re the first person I told any of this to, and you’re tougher than this, and smarter than this. I’m going to finish my story. It’s not that scary, not really. I’ve seen the track marks on your arm, I saw the bruises on your ribs you tried to cover up. You’re tougher than you let on.” 

 

I ejected the magazine and caught it, then turned the gun around so the handle pointed towards her. “There’s a bullet in the chamber. Just one. This gun, though, with the silver embossing and ivory, I’ve already been shot by it.” I tapped the twin scars on my scalp, the downy fuzz on my head growing everywhere but there. “Entry wound.” I tapped the one on the top of my head, slightly to the left. “Exit wound.” I touched the rougher one, towards the back of my head. Dropping the pistol on the floor, I pushed it over to Joana with my foot. “Don’t aim for the head. It’s too small a target. Aim for the heart. I might stab you to death before I’m done, but I can’t come back from that, and even if you miss the heart, it’ll still fuck me up and I’ll probably die.” 

 

“The fuck is this?” Joana hissed. “You know I can’t just kill you. The Omertas would have my head.” She kicked my gun back at me, it thumping across the floor to just between us. “If you want to finish your story, then finish your fucking story, but don’t play bullshit games with me.” Her lower lip quivered then, and I just barely saw the tears in her eyes, dim light doing nothing for me. 

 

I glanced at the gun, then relaxed back onto the bed. “Fucking hell, Joana, you need to get out of this place. Probably help you do it, eventually.” 

 

“I don’t need your fucking help,” she said, but I spoke over her.

 

“Now then, back to the story. I blasted the supports so the house would fall on top of them, but for his wife and kid, I put a few sticks right by their bedroom.” I leaned forward, an elbow on my knee, sitting on the edge of the bed by the door. “They died from the shockwave. Killed them quickly. I buried Harrison and the soldier boys with the ceiling because I wanted them to suffer. I wanted them to feel hopeless and helpless before they died because I wanted them to feel hopeless and helpless like the old people and the children from Independence who died from thirst, or exhaustion, or hunger. 

 

“Oriana, when I got back to her, told me it was the explosion that woke her up. She still had a nasty headache, and was just awake enough to speak. She was shocked and appalled because she wanted to see if Harrison could redeem himself, and also because I drugged her. I told her nobody could, and, long story short, she left me.” I looked at the gun again and shook my head with a scoff. “Can’t say I blame her. 

 

“Did I tell you which tribe my mother was from? It was the Carapace Snarl tribe, way out in Arizona. She was one of the first people to come west, fleeing Caesar. They’re called the Carapace Snarl tribe because of the war masks that they make, made out of radscorpion carapace, and because it covers up every part of the face but the eyes and mouth.” I chuckled and looked away, shaking my head. “Man, I was in a weird place. I made my own mask, a crude approximation, really. They, or we, keep the mouth open so that we can breathe during battle and not breathe in our own breath, which can make you lightheaded.”

 

Still scowling, but not as much panicking, Joana asked, “And what does that have to do with anything? 

 

I grinned in bloodthirsty remembrance. “I put it on when I tracked down the other three soldiers and killed them. I stabbed one of them in the heart. He fought hard, though. Gave me this.” I pointed to a long scar from my lower lip to underneath my chin and chuckled. “Ripped the knife out of his own chest to try and kill me with it, the motherfucker.” Again, I laughed to myself, and then looked up at Joana’s incredulous face. “No, no, get this, he was walking with a caravan, and I was waiting behind a boulder. He was walking in back, so I wanted to come out and cut his throat from behind, but a fucking scorpion stung me in the ass and made me leap out of hiding!” I let out a few quieter giggles and Joana allowed herself a single breath of smileless laughter. 

 

“So why don’t you skip to the part where you got shot in the head?” She pointed at the pistol on the floor and said, “That doesn’t look military issue, so I doubt it was one of the soldiers that you hunted.” 

 

With a smirk that had made her swoon an hour ago, I said, “I knew you were smart. Nobody’s that good at eating out from talent alone. Yeah, no, it was actually a year later, about a month ago, now. Um, I had taken on some work as a courier with the Mojave Express, and I was just out of the mountains when a couple of Great Khans jumped me. They caught me by surprise, but I still socked one of them good enough to break his nose. I expected them to beat the shit out of me, maybe rape me and definitely rob me, but no, one of them just strangled me unconscious. I woke up at night, on a hill outside Goodsprings, with that pistol pointed at my head.” I pointed the gun on the floor. “The Great Khans had dug me a grave, and were asking some guy in a checked suit to shoot me, but he said he was too good to kill me asleep, then, addressing me, that that must seem like bad luck, but that it was rigged. Everything was rigged. He stole my cargo, and shot me in the head. I woke up three days later in Goodsprings, Doc Mitchell having put my brain back together.” 

 

“Goodsprings? Isn’t that the town that got hit by the Powder Gangers three weeks ago?” Her expression hardened at me, and I scowled right back at her.

 

“If you're trying to say I had anything to do with that, you're wrong. I left the day after I woke up.” Anger seized me and pulled me up to my feet. I watched her hands ball into fists. “I was too busy tracking the fucks complicit in my murder across the Mojave. First came the Khans in Boulder City. Talked some information out of them, then killed them with an SMG.” 

 

“Then you tracked Benny to the Tops?” She furrowed her brow, and while my scowl remained and my fists balled, my breathing slowed from the near shouting state I was in. “You were the Courier that shot the place up? How many Chairmen did you kill?”

 

“Five. Injured six more. Personal record, for one fight.”

 

Joana sighed and sagged her shoulders. “I heard the gunshots. I assumed it was in Freeside, but I didn't know until morning. You killed Benny. He tried to kill you?” She looked genuinely confused. “I didn't think Chairmen got tangled up in that sort of thing.”

 

“They usually don't. The thing I was supposed to deliver was important to Mr. House for some reason, though.” I shrugged and relaxed my posture. “Figured it was some kind of power play. He paid me enough that I don't care, so here I am.”

 

Her shadowed eyes widened. “Wait. You're that bald chick that went into the Tops? Holy Hell!” She looked down and away with a quick chuckle. “Huh. I ate out the only person to go into the Tops in 200 years.”

 

As she stood there, half dumbfounded, I walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside for a moment. Night blanketed the artificial lighting keeping the courtyard of Gomorrah alive. It looked like a few partiers were gathered by the fountain, dancing. “There’s business down there if you want it, Joana.” I turned to her and gestured towards the window.

 

She blinked a few times and shook herself out of the haze. “I’ve got to touch up my makeup, then. And you've got to get to steppin, I don't care if you're the Courier that crawled out of the grave.”

 

I scoffed and stooped, looking for my panties as Joana stepped into the bathroom and started cleaning the smeared makeup from her face. “You’re a Hell of a call girl, Joana. And a pretty decent listener, except for the part where I pulled a gun on you.” 

 

“Damn straight.” She arched her back, accentuating her hips, and said, “Best ass in Vegas, and don't you forget it!”

 

I chuckled loud enough to be heard on the other side of the suite, but not so loud as to be condescending. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to. And, uh, if you do me the favor of not telling the NCR what I did to their soldiers, I’d appreciate it. Maybe appreciate enough to buy out your contract, or whatever it is keeping you here.” As I said this, I buckled the gunbelt over my pants. Looking back at her, though, pain writ itself across her face. 

 

“That’s not an option.” She turned back to me, and her mascara looked expertly applied, but her expression looked as though she’d just smeared shit on her eyelashes. “They won’t sell me. Not to you, not to anyone who isn’t an Omerta.” 

 

I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll come back in a couple months and help you sneak out, or I’ll do some more shit for Mr. House and he’ll pull strings or whatever he does to get you out.” The forlorn look on her face shifted, slowly, to a grateful one, and I strode over to her, my shirt only partially done up. I took her hand in mine and an awkward half smile crossed her face, unsure if she wanted to feel happy, pissed, or scared. “And if all else fails, I’ll stop by every once in awhile. Won’t even pull a gun on you, promise.” 

 

She looked up, the disbelieving, slightly scared, and altogether frustrated look on her face she wore while listening to me back on. “You keep your word, I might just forgive you, even let you pay me to do what I did today again. Now get the fuck out of here, already! I’m probably going to be working up here again in twenty minutes.”

 

As I left her room to continue wasting every cap that Mr. House paid me on chems, hookers, guns, and gambling, I knew that I was probably going to break my promise to Joana. Even if she had the best ass in Vegas, she was pretty far down the rabbit hole for me to just reach in and pull her out. Mr. House didn’t give a flying fuck about the individuals on the Strip, just about their money. I could shoot the place up and get her out, but that would take a lot of money and time to prepare for, and that’s ignoring that the NCR would arrest me and give Joana right back to the Omertas since they’re just about as corrupt as they are inefficient. I couldn’t just turn evidence of Omerta slavery right over to NCR, even if I did have it. Like I said, they’re corrupt, especially on the Strip. 

 

That left me with two or three options that I could see. I could work my way into the NCR, gain influence, and then fuck the Omertas, but that would be, honestly, more time and money than I was willing to give for Joana. Aside from that, she’d probably be dead by the time I’d worked enough to get the Omertas, either from Med-X or one of her captors. I could offer Mr. House an ultimatum, say I would be willing to work with him but only if he would work against Vegas corruption. The problem, well, problems with that are that Mr. House freaks me the fuck out, I wouldn’t ever want to work with him, that he’s not really into that sort of thing, so he’d resist or lie to me or do it half-assed, and that I’m probably just not that instrumental to his grand schemes. 

 

So I’d visit her, later on. Maybe give her some addictol, make sure it isn’t the Med-X that kills her. If I was spending so much time with her, though, helped her find her agency in life, the Omertas would probably get suspicious of me, maybe even try to rub me out. While that would give me an excuse to slaughter the lot of them, I didn’t know if I could. I’m quick, a good shot, but they had something like thirty guys in Gomorrah alone. Joana would have to wait. For what, I didn’t know, but I would visit her, I’d keep that part of the bargain up, and I’d caution her to go easy on the chems and try not to piss off the Omertas too much. 

 

I realized this would be the future between me and Joana five hours after I left her room, half a flask of whiskey roiling in my gut, thinking about kicking the shit out of that dude in the bar of Gomorrah that kept looking at me for whatever reason. Maybe he knew that I went in the Lucky 38, maybe he knew I killed Benny, it didn’t matter. Staring is fucking rude. I said as much from my chair halfway across the room, and that early in the morning, we were the only two people in the bar, apart from the greasy looking Omerta behind it and some asshole passed out on a table, so he definitely heard it. 

 

The guy had no facial hair, but he looked pretty old. Forties, maybe fifties. Hard to tell with how the sun tanned everyone’s skin to leather in this area, including his. He scoffed at my comment and said, “Also pretty rude to make promises you can’t keep.” He stood up and adjusted his khaki trench coat, grabbing his fedora from the bar and flipping a bottle cap the bartender’s way. He stepped over, close to me, with an unreadable smile on his face that, somehow, made me no longer want to deck him. “Cassidy’s got it. She’ll know what to do about the girl with the butt, and what to do about you.” He pointed at me, and I nearly fell out of my chair. Of course, that was probably due to the whiskey. He stepped back and doffed his hat at me and then at the bartender, and said, “Well, I’ve got to get going. My lucky streak is still on.” The bartender and I watched him, still wearing that almost alien smile, step out of the bar. As the door closed behind him, though, I could have sworn I saw him disappear.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pockets nearly empty of caps, Maria is tossed out of The Strip and seeks employment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As indicated in the notes at the end of the previous chapter, warnings for the upcoming chapter include: alcohol abuse, bureaucratic nonsense, foul language, and too hard attempts to be funny/flirty.

Two and a half weeks later and the words given to me by a mysterious stranger whilst drunk faded from my mind. I was working for Gloria Van Graff, mostly to recoup some of the money I’d lost on the Strip, but a little bit because I admired Gloria as more than just a businesswoman. It didn't help that she tended to wear her shirts a quarter of the way unbuttoned and that I kind of like to be bossed around. The guy I pulled guard detail with a couple times though told me that if I made a move and Gloria wasn't into me, her brother would rip my arm off and beat me to death with it. I believed him; Jean-Baptiste was a head taller than me, easily a hundred and fifty pounds heavier, and extremely protective of his family and their business.

 

So, two and a half weeks after making a weak promise to a drugged out prostitute and the morning after I delivered a Van Graff package to a shady blond guy, I walked into the Silver Rush, with my weapons allowed to be on me for once. As I stepped into the center of the room, towards Gloria, I flashed her as bright a smile as I could manage. To my surprise, she responded with a coy half-smile of her own. 

 

“Morning, Glory,” I said, resisting the urge to laugh at my own shitty pun. “Got anything for me today?”

 

Her smile slipped. “I don’t. The permanent hire is guarding well, and I don’t have any other packages for you to transport. Jean-Baptiste has something for you, though. Bit different.”

 

My eyes widened for a moment. Jean-Baptiste lounged in a chair a few feet away, chewing on something while he swabbed soot from the partially deconstructed laser rifle lying across his lap. Either he was too focused to notice what Gloria said, or he was just being polite and patient, two things that I did not know him for. His thick forearm that he swabbed with flexed as he moved, and I saw that his hand shook a little, likely owing to whoever he’d punched recently that had left the marks on his knuckles. 

 

“Courier,” he said as I approached, keeping his eyes on his weapon. “I need you to find someone for me. Bring her here so that we can talk.” Judging by his tone and his reputation, I wasn’t sure if talk meant kill or not. His tone softened as he looked up and said, “Don’t worry. I just want to talk to her.” His eyes betrayed no emotion, he blinked slowly, and his face twitched in a slight scowl, as if I were barely worth the breath it took to talk to me. “Rose of Sharon Cassidy is her name. Find her, bring her here.” 

 

I put my hand on my hip and swayed slightly, his gaze still unnerving me, even after a week of working with the Van Graffs. In my head, I kept jumping back and forth as to whether he wanted to kill her or not. After a moment, I decided that it didn’t matter. I’d killed plenty of people, he’d killed plenty of people. One more probably wouldn’t matter. Probably. Just so long as I didn’t let myself become too attached to how her ass moved when she ran. “You know where she is?”

 

He scoffed and sneered. “If I did, I would have told you. I don’t fucking know where she is, but I think McLafferty at Crimson Caravans is looking for her, too. Go have a talk with her. Maybe you’ll get paid for two jobs in one.” Looking back down at his lap and getting back to work, he waved me on, saying, “Now get the fuck out of here. I want it done quick.”

 

I threw my hands up and backed off, saying, “Alright, alright, I get it. Rose of Sharon Cassidy. What kind of prissy name is that?”

 

Jean-Baptiste cracked a smile. “I know, right? What the Hell was her mother thinking?”

 

As I left Freeside and made my way through the partially crumbled streets towards the Crimson Caravan Company local HQ, I let relief settle over me. I hadn’t realized how much working with people like the Van Graffs was stressing me out. With them, if they decided that I’d done something wrong, that I was a threat to their family or business, they’d do their best to wipe me off the face of the planet. Crimson Caravan didn’t operate like that, though. They’d just make sure you never got caravan work for the rest of your life. 

 

They were set up just a little ways outside of Vegas proper, though they still had thick walls up around them. Good thing, too, because Fiends would raid any time of day or night, and Crimson Caravan guards were lightly equipped compared to the Van Graffs in Freeside. On the walk over there, I kept my right hand near where my trail carbine was slung over my shoulder, beside the end of the barrel where it hung by my hip. If the Fiends ambushed me, they might get a good shot or two in before I retaliated, but no more than one or two, and the Van Graff ceramic armor I wore would be more than enough to tank a few hits from whatever the Fiends could scrounge up. 

 

My anxiety proved unnecessary, though, as I stepped up beside the gate to the local Crimson Caravan chapter unmolested. The guard let me in and gave me a quick direction as to where Alice McLafferty’s office was. 

 

Mclafferty’s office was, apparently, the most heavily guarded single building in the entire local chapter. Two burly, dusty men stood by the door, each with a nice looking shotgun, but they let me in upon recognizing whose armor I wore. I knew that the connections made with the Van Graffs would prove worth the time and effort. Inside, I found a couple of desks where people ran numbers, a central desk, and five armed guards milling about, two of them playing cards. Alice Mclafferty proved to be far less intimidating a presence than Gloria Van Graff, but mostly because Gloria had someone executed in front of me the first time I met her, and Alice was just a regal older woman with an absurdly tidy, steel grey haircut. 

 

“Alice Mclafferty?” I extended a hand over her desk as she looked up. 

 

She took it and shook it with a warm smile. “I am she. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

 

“Maria Trujillo.” I stood back up straight, reflecting her smile. With a quick gesture towards my armor, I said, “I’m working with the Van Graffs right now, but I heard that you might know some things I need to know, too, namely the location of Rose of Sharon Cassidy.”

 

She raised her eyebrows for a moment. “Oh? And why are you looking for her?”

 

“Jean-Baptiste wants to talk to her. He assured me that he only wanted to talk to her, but knowing Jean-Baptiste, he might just talk her into a pile of ash and bone.” I shook my head with a low chuckle before looking back up at her. “He said you know where she is. Where is she?”

 

“The Mojave Outpost. Word is she’s caught up in whatever bureaucratic nonsense the NCR has cooked up for keeping the caravans there.” She shook her head with a sigh. “Now, before you bring her back this way, I need you to get her to sell her caravan, if you can. I’ve got the letter of credit drafted right here.” She fiddled around with the drawers in her desk for a moment before producing a piece of high quality paper. “It’s a formality at this point, since her caravans have been raided so thoroughly as of late, but I want to make sure that she won’t build Cassidy Caravans back up into competition for Crimson Caravans. Understand?”

 

I shrugged and took the letter. “Sure. Got to ask, though, why you’re paying her so much when she doesn't actually have any caravans left.”

 

McLafferty folded her hands into a steeple on the desk. “Well, Ms. Cassidy has accrued quite a few debts in her time, which she needed the caravans to help pay off. Since the caravans were destroyed, she needs something else to pay her debts, and I thought offering to buy her company with the amount she needs to pay her debts would be rather tempting.”

 

I nodded and thought for a moment. “Mojave Outpost is a bit of a trek. Going to have to go back through Nipton for this, and since the Legion sacked it, it's more of a shithole than it used to be.”

 

“Three hundred caps. That, and you can fill up your canteen at one of our water tanks when you leave.” She glanced at the canteen around my neck, and I nodded. She extended her hand again, and this time I gave it a firm shake. “Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Trujillo.”

 

I smirked. “Of course it is. I’ll be back in two week sor so, most like. Maybe two weeks and a half.”

 

“I look forward to it.”

 

*****

 

The dust storm crept over the horizon as I started up the hill towards the NCR Mojave Outpost, a week after I left. Halfway up the hill, I noticed it racing across the dunes, almost as though it were chasing me. That’s entirely preposterous of course, but it still got me moving a bit quicker towards the Outpost. The sun still beat hard on me, and with my pack weighing heavily on my shoulders, jogging meant that sweat poured down my face, dripping from my chin and nose with every other step. 

 

Once at the top of the hill, standing in the shade of a metal statue of a couple NCR figures shaking hands, I looked back again, having resisted the urge the entire run up. A cloud of dust, yellow, immense, rolled across the dunes. I took a moment to appreciate the incredible sight that is a Mojave Wasteland dust storm, but then sweat dripped in my eye, and I cursed, and it ruined the moment, so I turned around and stepped inside the Outpost, past the chain link fence. 

 

Inside, caravaneers covered their brahmins’ faces with heavy blankets, tarps, jackets, whatever they could find to protect the beasts’ eyes, nose, and mouth. Many of the soldiers shuffled towards one of the two buildings in the Outpost. From the snippets of conversation that I caught, most of them were heading towards the building that served as their barracks and their canteen. I pulled one aside, a younger looking man with a lopsided buzzcut. 

 

“Excuse me, but I just arrived here. I caught that the building over there is the barracks, but I need to know what the other one is.” 

 

He shrugged. “Admin offices. You need equipment repaired, they’re the folks to go to. Canteen’s got some good liquor, though, and most of us will be headed there.”

 

I smiled, more to be polite than anything, and started towards the barracks, alongside him. “Thanks. Say, have you met someone by the name of Rose of Sharon Cassidy? She’s supposed to be hanging out around here, and I need to have a chat with her.”

 

He scoffed and shook his head. From his tone and his demeanor, it seemed that she may have embarrassed him one way or another. “Yeah, she’ll be in the canteen, most like. She’s spent a solid couple weeks swimming in whiskey. No idea what’s bothering her, though. What do you need her for?” 

 

I shrugged. “Business. Thanks for the information.” Then I stepped into the building he directed me towards, just as I felt a gust of wind coast up the hill towards the Outpost. Inside the building, I found a good fifteen troopers gathered in the canteen, and heard even more in an adjacent room, which turned out to be the barracks themselves. From the description that Jean-Baptiste gave me of Cassidy, that and the fact that she was one of five people at the bar, and the only one outside of NCR fatigues, I judged that the woman in the rattan straw hat, with the collar of a pink flannel shirt peeking over her jacket, red hair tucked up in her hat, was likely her. 

 

As I strode over towards her, she wore this surly look, swirling around a half empty bottle of whiskey, staring into it as though she were looking for something the same color and consistency as the liquid within. When I grabbed a barstool next to her, she seemed not to notice me. I leaned on my elbow, a little bit further forward, looking around into her field of view. When she looked over to me, I waved, trying to put on a friendly smile, but she scoffed and turned away, grumbling, “I can tell I’m going to need the rest of this bottle for this, aren’t I?”

 

“Depends. You’re Rose of Sharon Cassidy of Cassidy Caravans?”

 

She nodded. “Yep. Why do you care?” With her scowl and the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, I guessed her to be just into her middle ages. 

 

I glanced around the room, making a bit of a show of it. “You’ve been here a couple weeks, right? Why?”

 

Cassidy scoffed. “NCR won’t let me through on account of my caravan papers. Say the roads aren’t safe. No shit the roads aren’t safe, since when did they start caring about it?” She shook her head and took a swig from her whiskey. Then she turned to me, a somewhat peeved expression on her face. “Now answer my fucking question.”

 

I shrugged. “I’m here on behalf of Alice McLafferty. She wants to buy out your caravan.”

 

“Ain’t much left to buy out. Caravans are burned to ash, the caravaneers with them. Nothing left but the name, and that’s a rough thing to do to a person, to buy their name from them.” She looked on me with a measure of disdain, but with a larger amount of regret and pain behind it. “So you can go back to that McLafferty bitch and tell her she’s wasted her time and yours. Now, is there something else you wanted, or can I get back to drowning myself?”

 

Sitting back, I offered her a sympathetic expression, putting a hand on her shoulder. She winced, but didn’t brush it off like I thought she might. “Caravan papers are all that’s keeping you here. Doesn’t seem like the nicest place to be trapped. Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life in this shithole?” 

 

She pursed her lips, again swirling her whiskey around. “Can’t say I do. It’s all I’ve got left, though. It’s my dad’s name, but dad’s gone, mom’s gone, and the caravan’s gone, but my papers are still here.” She fished around in the satchel hanging over her shoulder, producing a document printed on fine paper and flattening it out on the bar. Looking at it, it was the certificate of ownership of Cassidy Caravans. I pulled a similar paper from my own satchel, alongside a ballpoint pen, only this was a certificate of ownership transfer of Cassidy Caravans to Alice McLafferty, in exchange for the payment of all debts belonging to Rose of Sharon Cassidy as of a week and a half ago up to the amount of one thousand caps. 

 

I tilted the pen towards her as she read over the transfer paper. “All you’ve got to do to get out of this shithole is sign the paper. Could even come with me, if you want.”

 

She took the pen and twiddled it between her fingers, tongue in cheek. “Come with you, huh? And just who the Hell are you?”

 

“Maria Trujillo. Pleased to meet you.” I let out a little chuckle, and Cassidy shook her head, almost laughing, too. “I’m a bit of a Courier, though I have been finding myself doing odd jobs more often than package running.” 

 

After a few seconds of hard staring at me, she shrugged and took the certificate of transfer, saying, “Oh, what the Hell. It’ll be better than sitting here, waiting to die or go broke.” 

 

I grinned and took the paper and pen back after she finished signing. “Thanks. We can’t leave just yet, though. I’ve got to resupply, and aside from that, there’s a dust storm rolling in, even if it won’t be that bad this high up.”

 

She scoffed and shook her head, handing me the certificate of ownership. “Motherfucker. Well, if we aren’t going anywhere, might was well get to know you.” She took a moment to consider it, then offered me the bottle of whiskey. “Want to get shitfaced together?”

 

Hoping that my grin looked more suave than it felt, I said, “Always glad to spend an afternoon drinking with a cute redhead.” I took a swig from the bottle and put it back down, finding her face stuck in a surprised, if a little dazed, expression. 

 

“Oh. I, uh, didn’t realize you thought of me like that.” Her cheeks reddened a little more than they had from the whiskey alone, eyes avoiding mine. “Course, I get deep in the bottle, don’t really care who I go to bed with.”

 

I resisted the urge to chuckle at the chance that this might actually work and lifted up the whiskey, swishing it back and forth with a mischievous grin. “This deep enough yet?”

 

“Pft. I ain’t deep by half.” An incredulous look on her face, she snatched the bottle and took a deep drink. This time, I didn’t resist the urge to laugh. She put the drink down hard, it with a quarter left in it by now, as compared to the half when I walked in. “Now, then. Whether or not I pass out or puke before deciding that you’re hot, I need to know a little more about you.” The slur in her voice became a little more pronounced by then. “Tell me about, uh, tell me about your name. Maria Trujillo. That’s Mexican, right? Or Spanish, or whatever.”

 

I nodded. “Spanish, yeah. How about Rose of Sharon? Where’d you get that name?”

 

“Heh. Dad gave it to me. Took it from some old world book about dirt pilgrims, as mom said it. Wasn’t around long enough to tell me himself.” She narrowed her eyes, but still wore a playful smirk. “Now wasn’t I supposed to be the one asking questions? Now you tell me about your own parents.”

 

“They were parents. Fed me, protected me, loved me, but they did all that in New Reno, so I split once I felt competent enough.” I shrugged and turned around in my seat, leaning backwards, elbows on the bar. Then the stool toppled, I bumped the back of my head on the baar, and my tailbone slammed into the floor, my legs tangled up in the stool’s legs. Cassidy burst into loud, raucous laughter, and several of the troopers giggled and snickered alongside her. My face grew hot fast, and I pushed myself to my feet. 

 

As I stomped towards the door, Cassidy said, “What, you had too much to drink already?” 

 

Then I pushed open the door, getting a faceful of dust. The dying laughter kicked up again and I ducked back inside, shouting, “Fuck!” Luckily, I’d closed my eyes quick enough to keep sand out of them, but I was still spitting sand on the floor. With a chuckle, Cassidy clapped me on the back and I shot upright, almost punching her before restraining myself, realizing who it was over the haze that was my irritation at everyone. The laughter at my shenanigans drowned out even the howling of the storm outside. 

 

Cassidy dragged me by the arm towards the bar, saying, as the laughter turned back to conversation, “Don’t worry about it, Maria. Happens to the best of us. Time to cut you off, or were you just trying that hard?” We sat next to each other again, and she let me go. At my somewhat grumpy expression, she chuckled and said, “Come on, now, quit that shit, you look like a pouty kid. If you get pissed this easy, you’re not going to enjoy travelling with me.”

 

I sighed and shook my head, convincing myself that Cass’s rough sort of attractiveness and that I might convince her to let me see more of it by the time we got to New Vegas would be worth a little abrasiveness. I softened my expression. “I’m not pissed. Not really. I’m just embarrassed, that’s all.” As I checked her out again, I caught sight of a rose shaped pendant hanging around her neck, just peeking up over the button of her flannel. I gestured at it, and she glanced down for a moment. “What’s that from? Seems a bit on the nose, doesn’t it?”

 

She shrugged. “One of those things my dad gave me. Really, he just gave me this, my name, my skill with a gun, and my propensity for hard drinking.” I readily smirked again at that, and she mirrored my expression, fiddling with the silver rose between two fingers. “Yep. Walked out on my mom and me before I was old enough to walk and talk. Just started wandering east, as mom said it.”

 

I nodded and glanced down and away. I considered it, but elected not to tell her about the last few letters I received from my parents, after I started hunting the people responsible for the end of Independence. I told them Oriana left me because I did something she didn’t agree with. They asked me to come home, start over with them, work with them, but I was scared, and I took the Courier job. “That’s a shame. Always liked my dad, the tough old bastard.” I chuckled. After a momentary lull in the conversation, I said, “So, what about your mom? What was she like? Since you didn’t really know your dad, I mean.”

 

“Well, mom was nice enough. Tribal, and managed to stay alive long enough for me to start getting into trouble with boys, so by the end she was this little mess of wrinkles and tattoos.” She let out a rueful chuckle and shook her head. A bit of mirth still on her face, she glanced to me and said, “And before you ask, no, she didn’t teach me how to use spears or any of that shit. I’ll win a gunfight or a fistfight, and I’m handy with dynamite, but give me a spear and you’ll be lucky if I put the pointy end forward.” 

 

I laughed with her at that. Another moment passed before either of us decided to speak. “So, I feel I ought to tell you something. One of the reasons I came down here looking for you was for Alice McLafferty, but the other was because someone in Freeside wants to talk to you. Jean-Baptiste Cutting.” I kept my eyes on the bar, a little ashamed that I might be dragging this woman across the Mojave only for Jean-Baptiste to disintegrate her. 

 

She let out a boisterous laugh that at the same time lifted my spirits and heightened my shame. “Jean-Baptiste, huh? Guess we’re just a trio of funny names, aren’t we?” With another hearty chuckle, she clapped me on the upper back. “Was it your mother that was the Mexican, then, or was it your pa?”

 

“My dad. Mom was a tribal, running west from Caesar’s Legion as fast as her legs could take her.” 

 

An incredulous look crossed Cassidy’s face. “No shit? My mom’s a tribal from Arizona, too, only she left before Caesar started conquering.” She shifted in her seat, her brows furrowing in slight concern. “Hang on, how old are you, if your mom was running from Caesar?”

 

I scowled, but tried to keep it shallow enough that it was clear it wasn’t serious. “I’m twenty seven. Do I really look that old?”

 

She put calloused hands on either side of my face and turned me towards her, and while I would have punched many people for trying that, Cassidy was a bit drunk, and I might have liked it when she touched me. “I guess I could see that. Nose is still cute; ain’t got old enough for it to start drooping. It’s just the cropped hair and the wrinkles and the scalp scars, I guess. Plus you act like a crotchety old bitch, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

 

I scoffed and shook my head, her hands falling back to the bar as she took a swig of the whiskey. “What, just because I got a little steamed when people laughed at me, I’m crotchety? Is that it?”

 

She kept her hands around the bottle. “There’s also the bit where you refuse to tell me much about you. Scared I ain’t going to like what you say, won’t want to travel with you?”

 

She hit the nail right on the head with that line of questioning, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “No, I just like to know people a bit more than I know you before I start spilling my guts to them. That, or I like to know that I won’t be seeing them too often. You going to pass that bottle?” Though a little reluctant in her motions, she passed it over, and I took a deep gulp that left fire spreading to my stomach and cheeks and the bottle nearly empty. 

 

“Damn, girl, think you can hold that much liquor?” She squeezed my shoulder through my shirt and said, “Seem a little skinny to be drinking that much.” 

 

Chuckling, I gestured towards the bartender, busy with all the soldiers, and said, “If you’re worried I’m too skinny, buy me dinner!” I leaned a little closer and lowered my voice, heartened that she wasn’t flinching or pushing me away. “That way, if you decide I’m butch enough to be cute, nobody can say that I’m giving it up for free.”

 

I sat back up straight, and disappointment hit me, though I tried to keep my expectations low, when she said, “Slow your roll, kid. If you want me to be coming with you just so you can try and sweep me off my feet or some such shit, you’ll be mighty disappointment. Er, disappointed. Now, if you actually want my help and expertise, then that’ll work out. I also feel the need to warn you, since I don’t really know you, that if you try to pull some shit when I’m asleep or blackout drunk, I might cut your tits off and nail them to your asscheeks, but I’ll probably just blow your brains out.” She wore a very matter of fact look on her face, and I believed her.

 

I put my hands up beside my head, sitting up straight and almost falling off the stool from the movement, thanks to the whiskey. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on taking advantage of you, without consent anyway.” I flashed her a grin, but she no longer seemed to be in a flirting mood, also probably thanks to all the whiskey I drank. 

 

The conversation in the room lulled a moment, and Cassidy glanced towards the door, thumbing towards it. “You want to get packing? Sounds like the storm is letting up.”

 

Normally, I would have questioned this, but the drink in my system made that part of me seem significantly less important. I shrugged. “Sure. I don't see why not; I don’t really want to sleep in a room with a bunch of strangers, anyway.”

 

Outside, the storm let up. Up at the top of the hill where the Mojave Outpost resided, the storm blew light, anyway, but by that point it’d gone entirely. All left of it were a couple new mounds of dust up against the walls and some light wind gusts. I barely noticed that, though, having drunk enough of the whiskey that I could really only focus on one thing at a time, and this time it was Cassidy’s hips and butt swaying in front of me as she led the way out of the Outpost. 

 

“Come on, keep up,” she called over her shoulder, her slur having gone once we got moving. I pushed myself to move a bit faster despite the heavy bags hanging on my shoulders and the somewhat less heavy drunkenness tangling my legs with each other. “You didn’t drink that much, Maria.” She put the emphasis where it was supposed to be with my name, but in such a manner as to be mocking. With a scoff, she stopped and put her hands on her hips as I finally caught up to her. “I am not going to carry you, and if you roll down this hill and injure yourself, I will not nurse you back to health, so get the fuck on with it.” 

 

I huffed, but did as she said. I’d drunk a bit, and while I stumbled a bit, too, I managed to keep up from there to the bottom of the hill. She asked, “You said there’s a man that wants to talk to me in Freeside, right? In Vegas?” I nodded and she shrugged, starting east down Nipton Road. “Guess it’s this way, then. You know what happened in Nipton, right? Since you came this way.”

 

“Yeah. Legion sacked the fucking place. Might be able to smell it soon, if the dust storm didn’t cover up all the bodies and smother the fires.” I wasn’t sure, but I though I caught a hint of smoke on the wind, though I couldn’t see any more smoke rising in the evening light, not at that distance and not that long after the fires. “Could set up camp for tonight right here, so we don’t have to sleep in the smell.” 

 

Cassidy shrugged. “I wanted to cover a bit more ground before dark, but if you say so, I guess we’ll set up camp.” 

 

“Thanks. I don’t much like the smell of decaying corpse.” 

 

“Can’t say I do either.” She helped me set up a pair of tents, and from how quickly and confidently she moved it seemed safe to say that she knew what she was doing. By the time it was all set up, the sun hung low on the horizon. Before we left the Outpost, we resupplied with food and water, enough to get us to Novac, so we took a seat in the sand next to each other and fished out our food. 

 

“So, Maria,” she said, sucking on a well seasoned piece of jerky, “now that we’re travelling together, figure you want to tell me what you’re worth? What you’re good at?”

 

I grinned and ticked them off on my fingers as I listed, “Fast talking, fast shooting, and fast kissing.”

 

Cassidy quirked an eyebrow and let out a quick laugh. “Fast kissing? I don’t think that’s a thing, kid.”

 

“It is,” I told her in a tone a little more indignant than I intended. “Up in New Reno, ten years ago at least, that was the term for the art of getting someone’s clothes off as quickly as possible while you’re kissing.” 

 

She burst into a series of short chuckles, and seeing her crack up set me to smiling along with her. “Well, I didn't know the phrase for it until now, but I’m probably a decent, uh, fast kisser myself, though usually I'm kissing on different people than you, I suppose.”

 

I cocked my eyebrow. “Oh? And who is it that you think I kiss?”

 

“Cute, pretty women.” I shrugged and nodded with a laugh. She grinned back at me for a moment before chewing on her jerky a little more a swallowing. “Must be pretty starved if you’re coming at me. Yeah, and I’ll usually be trying to get the pants off of men. Even if I’m taking a ride on the old pussy express, it’s not often. I’ve said that I hate soft men, and yeah, whiskey dick is more disappointing than a bullet in the liver, but I don’t mean just soft in the pants, I mean soft everywhere. Soft in the heart.”

 

I tried and failed to stifle my laughter, it squeezing out of my nose just barely. She rolled her eyes. “Soft in the heart? You that tired, want me to take first watch?” 

 

“Pft. You know what I mean. I been with plenty of men and women in my time, and whether it’s a friend, companion, or a lover, I don’t abide in soft people.” She grabbed another stick of jerky and held it up in front of her. “I like my people like I like my jerky. Tough, spicy, and a little sweet. Not tough enough, can’t handle the real face of the wastes, not spicy enough and can’t keep my interest, or too sweet and pulling me off to do stupid shit, trying to save everyone with no fucking regard for their own safety.” She chucked the jerky back into the bag she kept it in and pulled out the nearly empty whiskey bottle, emptying it in one go. I sat and watched, though a little distracted wondering where I fit in her head. She dropped the bottle in with her other provisions. “That being said, I don’t like mean people, and I do like helping people, but you ain’t helping anybody by dying.” 

 

“Damn straight.” We spent the rest of the evening eating and talking about small things, favorite guns, first kisses. I threw a few more flirtations her way, and she reciprocated a couple, but nothing happened beyond that; I was too scared, and we were both too tired and sweaty. I took first watch and she went out like a light. I found my eyes kept wandering to the tent where she slept, and I told myself that it was just because I was considering acting the creep and watching her sleep, but whether I was considering that for perversion, worry, or actual affection, I couldn’t tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for next chapter: Violence, execution, foul language, some more stupid flirting


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria and Rose of Sharon Cassidy get moving towards their destination, and run into a snag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: violence, execution, foul language, some more stupid flirting

The next morning, I woke up to a shotgun blast, pellets pulverizing the sand beside my head. I scrambled backwards, reaching for the pistol I kept in my gun belt beside me, but not only did I find it empty, but a boot caught me hard in the ribs, tossing me onto my side. After taking a moment to groan, I looked up to see who was attacking me and found Cassidy. She braced her over-under shotgun against her shoulder with one arm, and fished in her pockets for a moment before pulling a gold coin on a chain out, a bull printed on the front with the words, “Lego Caesaris,” fringing it. 

 

“Just what the fuck is this, Maria?” Chucking it hard at my chest, she brought her other hand to her shotgun barrel, aiming for my head. “I don’t think Caesar employs female agents, otherwise your brains would already be on the sand. So tell me what the fuck that is and why you have it.”

 

I picked it up and looked it over again, making sure it was what I thought. I nodded and put it down, looking back up at her. “It’s the Mark of Caesar. It absolves me of crimes committed against the Legion. It also serves as an invitation to the Fort, across the Colorado, by way of Cottonwood Cove.” 

 

“And why do you have it?” The scowl on her face could have curdled milk. 

 

“I was getting to that. Mr. House invited me into the Lucky 38 and, apparently, that makes me big news. Didn’t keep his robots from chucking me from the Strip once I ran out of money, but that’s beside the point. It makes me big news, so when I left the casino the first time, a man named Vulpes Inculta, one of Caesar’s top men, confronted me, gave me this.” I gestured to the coin and sat up straight. Cassidy’s gun followed me. “If he were just some legionary, I would’ve shot him, most likely, but Mr. House’s Securitrons don’t like gunfights on the strip, and I recognized Vulpes Inculta. He’s probably the most frightening person or thing I’ve ever stared down. Given I’ve tangled with Cazadores and Great Khans, that should say a lot.” 

 

She lowered her gun, and her scowl softened a little. “Who the fuck is this Vulpes guy, then? What makes him so scary?” 

 

I stowed the Mark of Caesar and shrugged. “Come with me to Nipton and I’ll show you.”

 

Cassidy pulled my pistol from the back of her waistband and handed it to me handle first after a moment’s hesitation. “No need. A Ranger from the Mojave Outpost investigated Nipton after people stopped coming to and from there. Crucifixions, beheadings, the town on fire, it sounded pretty disturbing.” 

 

I nodded, standing up and putting my pants on. “Yeah. Vulpes Inculta was responsible. Well, him and about thirty other Legion soldiers.” I stooped and grabbed my gun belt to start putting it on. “They cornered me, and I thought they’d kill me, but Vulpes just told me to spread the word that that is what happens to degenerates. I’ve never been more terrified in my life.” Shaking my head, I holstered my pistol. “You won’t really understand unless you walk the streets, lined with crucified gangsters and prostitutes.” 

 

She shook her head and leaned her gun on her shoulder, muzzle pointed skyward. “Fucking Legion. Call us degenerates, then go commit mass murder. Nipton was a town of more than five hundred, and according to the Ranger, and only two of them weren’t murdered or enslaved. Could barely fucking believe it when I heard it the first time.” She shrugged and gestured to the tent above us. “I don’t feel the need to go and give myself extra nightmares. We should circumvent the town. You need help getting ready to go? I already am.”

 

“Sure, if you’re willing to help.”

 

*****

 

We successfully circumvented Nipton, and the blood and smoke on the air smelled weaker than when I passed through the other day. We prolonged our journey, not willing to stop before it was absolutely necessary. Both of us travelled dangerous roads for years before meeting each other, and despite growing thirsty, tired, and grimy towards the evening, we kept our guards up. Though we travelled towards the setting sun, Cassidy noticed movement on a ridge fewer than two hundred yards away, near a northward turn in the road. She grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed, and I saw it too, a pair of figures on the ridge, though I couldn’t see whether they were humanoid or not. 

 

The bullet that ricocheted off the cracked, dilapidated asphalt by my feet answered that question. Cassidy and I both scrambled for cover, me behind a rusted out hunk of steel that used to be a truck, and her behind a roadside boulder. I pulled out my pistol; while it fired a slower projectile and thus would be less accurate than my rifle at such range, it was semi automatic, and I could provide suppressing fire with it. “I’ll keep them pinned down, Cass,” I said, pointing at the ridge, “you push up, see if you can’t return fire.” She nodded and I leaned over the hood of the car, ignoring the slight burning sensation from the baking steel, dampened by my clothes. 

 

I took little time to aim, both to keep them from being able to get a shot on me and also because actually hitting them wasn’t my goal. I sent five bullets towards the ridge, and saw the two figures atop it scramble for cover. Cassidy pushed up a good ways, around thirty yards, towards another car. One of the figures atop the ridge tried to get off a shot at her, but I shot three more times and they ducked back behind cover. We worked our way forwards together like that, alternating who shot and who ran, me with my pistol, Cassidy with her revolver. 

 

By the point that we both managed to find ourselves around a hundred and twenty yards away, I’d emptied my pistol. Just as I collected the full magazine from my belt and ejected the empty one from my gun, I spotted movement on our level. A man, bandana over his mouth and dirt caking mostly all the bare parts of him I saw, came around the bend, a lever action rifle cradled in his arms and cracked a shot off at me before taking cover behind a car of his own. The bullet screamed past my ear, and I dropped to my knees behind my own car, also dropping my pistol magazine. It slid out from behind the car and I reached for it. Another gunshot sounded, this one from above, skidding off the pavement beside my hand, and I retreated behind my car, panting and heart hammering without the replacement magazine. 

 

I holstered my empty pistol and drew my own lever action, even as Cassidy squeezed off a shot towards the ridge. She sent another couple their way, and I stuck my rifle through the empty window of my car, pointed towards the man on the ground, trusting Cassidy to keep suppressing the people up on the ridge. Sure enough, she did. The next time the man leaned out of cover to try and get a shot on me, I put a .44 Magnum bullet through his collarbone, lying him flat on the ground as blood and bone sprayed out his back. Before the people on the ride could return fire, I lunged from cover, grabbing my magazine and dashing for the car the man I’d just shot writhed and groaned behind. 

 

We resumed our pattern of working our way forward until around seventy yards away, at which point Cassidy and I both took cover behind a boulder, just beside the path that our attackers likely used to climb up onto the ridge. I pointed up the ridge. “Push up with your shotgun; I’ll keep them pinned down, you flank them and finish them off.” She nodded and, as I leaned out from cover to take a couple wild shots, she sprinted forth. Cassidy pressed on as I kept hounding the people that had fired on us, not scoring a hit the entire time.

 

Cassidy turned out to be telling the truth when she told me that she was a good shot. As soon as she managed to get a flanking position on the closest combatant to her, around thirty yards away from her, she emptied two twenty gauge shotgun shells in his direction, filling his chest cavity with lead and leaving him to bleed to death a few seconds later. Then our final opponent shifted to protect himself from Cassidy’s gunfire, inadvertently giving me the opportunity to put two nine millimeter bullets in him. The first struck his upper arm, lodging in and partially splintering his humerus. The other sailed through his deltoid, leaving behind a blood spatter and a chunk of ruined flesh, but hardly a mortal injury. 

 

As he collapsed, clutching his arm, Cassidy stomped up to him, her shotgun reloaded and pointed at him. “Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle, asshole.” I heard some wordless sputtering from him, the fear palpable as I hurried to accompany my companion. Glancing at the person took down with her shotgun, I found him dead. Well, it might have been a her; the buckshot shredded them enough to make sex not immediately apparent. Once I stepped up beside Cassidy, I found the man I’d shot sitting up against a boulder, clutching his ruined upper arm. His lower lip quivered as he looked to me and tears already left tracks in the dirt on his face. 

 

Repeatedly, he muttered something tough to decipher. After a couple time of listening, though, I found that he was saying, “Please, God, not now, not like this.” When he looked up at me, terror shone, definitely, and for obvious reasons. Behind it, though, I could tell he held some kind of affection for one or both of the other people we’d killed, and that left a certain intensity behind his eyes. 

 

“What do you want to do with him?” Cassidy asked me. I pursed my lips and picked up the rifle he’d dropped, a light, cheap bolt action piece meant for hunting small game. “I could tie him up and leave him. I’m not good enough with knots to tie one he couldn’t get out of, but we’d be long gone by the time he managed to get loose.” I checked the rifle’s chamber, found a small bullet in it, 5.56 probably. I looked back to the begging, sobbing man. Red crowded his eyes, red splotched his cheeks, both blood and blushes from his sobbing, red dribbled out from between his fingers where he applied pressure to his arm to try and keep himself from bleeding out. The red in his eyes, though, that bothered me. He’d already begun to grieve, and given what kind of work he was involved in and given the veiled hatred in his eyes, I knew the kind of man he would become after he grieved. 

 

He would become revengeful. 

 

I shouldered the rifle and put a bullet through his eye. Before I pulled the trigger, he let out one, last, terrified yelp. Then, as Cassidy’s eyes widened and he slumped backwards, I worked the bolt and shot him again in the top of the head, and then one more time between the eyes. She clamped her hand around my elbow as I worked the bolt again, but the gun was already empty so I dropped it. 

 

“The fuck are you doing,” she hissed, a statement more than a question. She smacked me in the back of the head, hard, and pointed at the freshly made corpse. “He had given up, he was begging for his life, and then you kept shooting him once he’s dead? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

 

She planted her hands on my chest, shoving me back a pace. I looked up and finally exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Shaking my head, I tapped one of my scalp scars and said, “He’d come after us. Somebody saved him, then as soon as he was able bodied, he would come to track us down and put us in the ground. I had to make sure that there was no way he could recover.” 

 

The shock, the fury, the disgust in her eyes faded after a moment, though not entirely. She realized where I’d pulled that information from, and that it was a reliable source. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, wiping the sweat from her upper lip with the back of her hand. Her upper body trembled, and I realized that mine did, too. With a rueful, half hearted chuckle, I took the empty pistol magazine from my belt and reloaded it from the ammo box in my satchel. “So. Bury them, or leave them for the buzzards?”

 

I shook my head and laughed, but we both knew that there was no mirth or malice behind it. “Bird’s have got to eat, too.” 

 

“Let’s get moving, then. Pick over what they’ve got, then we go and set up camp suitably far away. Won’t be able to get the shit stink out of my nose tonight no matter how far we move, but if we put this place behind us, then it won’t stink as bad as it might if we stick around.” I agreed, more or less. We got moving. 

 

*****

 

That evening, Cassidy got her tent set up first. Pride made me chalk it up to her being a decade more experienced, butt her voice was soft when she strode up next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned from where I knelt, hammer in hand, stake partially pounded. She extended a hand for the hammer. “Here. Let me pound the stakes, you go start up a fire, or wrap yourself up in blankets and eat, at least.” 

 

The hand holding the hammer trembled, and she took it from me. I hesitated as she knelt down beside me, and she waved me on so that I’d step a little ways away and wrap myself up in some blankets, as she’d asked. I couldn’t thank her. Instead I watched her pound the tent stakes, a biscuit trembling in my hand. Sure, I admired her form as she worked, but my shaking hands distracted me from my typical ogling of a bent over Cassidy, to the point that I actually had to think about eating my biscuit, that is, or eat it without thinking and get crumbs all over me. 

 

After erecting my tent the rest of the way, she gathered her own blankets and supper and sat beside me with a little grunt. She wrapped an arm around my waist and covered herself, saying, “Don’t worry. It’s totally normal to be a little fragile after all we did today. Come on, sit closer.” I hesitated. On the one hand, she was asking me to snuggle up with her, which could lead to all sorts of fun activities, and on the other, she was treating me like a child. I decided to snuggle closer. After all, she was a decade older than me. “There you go, Maria,” she said as I leaned my head on her shoulder. In the gathering dark, I barely noticed how crooked her teeth were when she smiled down at me. “Sit here with Cass.” 

 

I finished my food and she took a hold of my hand with her free one as she ate her own food with the other. I looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “Oh? And what’s this, then?” I squeezed her hand. “I thought your style of flirting was a lot more straightforward.” 

 

She shrugged and swallowed. “Usually my style of flirting is drunkenly hitting on some guy that I’ll regret seeing in the morning in the hopes that I can get his pants off of him. Figure it might be nice, for a change, to try and help you hold still with all that nervous energy in you.” 

 

Seizing the opportunity, I leaned up into her ear and whispered, “I can think of a few things that would tire me out.” I grinned as she groaned and shied away. 

 

“Goddammit. Here I am trying to be nice, and you have to go and pull that shit.” She left her hand in mine, even as she shook her head and scoffed. “I actually know you now. If it were just a one night stand and I was drunk, I wouldn’t have to do this the right way, but here I am, giving a half a shit about you, and you’ve still got to try and get my pants off.” 

 

I shrugged. “Well, my favorite kind of dress is one puddled on a bedroom floor, and the best kinds of pants are ones that don’t tear easily.” My hand drifted to her thigh, and she let go of my hand, smacking the other one away from her leg. 

 

“Fucking hell, do I have to spell it out for you?” My grin faded as actual anger found her voice. “If I didn’t know you, I’d fuck you and be done with you, but since I do and since we’re actually spending time together and not just a single drunken evening, I’m looking for something else from you. Do you get it?” 

 

I nodded slowly, my eyes down and away with some measure of embarrassment and shame. “I’ve got to try harder, then, write you poems or some shit, help you out with things other than getting your clothes off?” 

 

She snorted. “It’s a fucking start.” 

 

I took her hand back and did my best impression of an earnest, sorry expression. She looked like she half believed it and let me scootch up next to her again. “Well, here’s a start, then.”

 

She shook her head and said, “I can’t believe the shit I’m going to have to put up with,” but leaned back into me, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the next chapter: discussions of mutilation and attempted rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, foul language, discussions of violence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria has a fun time in Novac.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the following chapter: discussions of mutilation and attempted rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, foul language, discussions of violence.

Our third night travelling together, about midway between the ambush site and Novac, I took the first watch and watched well past midnight, when we’d agreed to switch up. I rose from the boulder I’d sat on with a grunt and brushed aside Cassidy’s tent flap. Inside, nestled amongst the various equipment and accoutrement, Cassidy slept wrapped in her blankets, shotgun lying down next to her. The temptation to watch her sleep nagged at me, but I figured that I’d let her sleep long enough.  
“Hey, Cass.” Her eyes snapped open, breathing quick, but it slowed down as she recognized me, backlit by the stars as I was. “It’s your watch. I let you sleep in a little bit.”  
She sighed and ground the sleep from her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Fucking hell, Maria, there’s a reason we agreed on midnight. If you pass out before we get to Novac, I swear to God I will not carry you.” She sat up straight, and while I’d hoped that she might show more skin in her nightclothes, I had no such luck; she already dressed for the watch. “Now go the fuck to sleep. If you think I’m going to show my appreciation for letting me sleep late by screwing you, you’re wrong.” I hadn’t really expected that result, but hearing her say it aloud still sank my heart a little. When she stood up to step past me, under the flap that I held up for her, she said, “Thanks, though. I appreciate that you’re trying to do more than the bare minimum.”  
I grinned. “Anything for you. You know, you’re about as beautiful as a rose, like in your name.”  
She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but I caught a momentary grin on her face. “You’re ridiculous. Have you ever actually read a poem, Maria?”  
I shrugged. “Probably. Read lots of things.”  
She scoffed, but still took one of my hands and squeezed it. “Get some sleep, Maria.”  
“You got it.”  
*****  
Novac looked a little smaller than I remembered, and while mostly all of the shacks outside the motel the town was named for still remained, a significant amount of them appeared to be empty the evening we arrived. No-Bark Noonan dug with his hands beside his shack, and I saw Manny Vargas up in mouth of the dinosaur statue, but of what had been a 125 person town, less than a hundred remained. Cassidy caught my concerned look and stepped around in front of me.  
“What’s going on, Maria? You been through here before?”  
I nodded. “A couple weeks back, three maybe. I remember Manny Vargas mentioned some problem they were having with ghouls taking over their main prospecting site. It’s a big part of their economy. Might be people are leaving because of that.”  
“You want to ask around about it?” We kept on towards the motel as we talked.  
I shook my head. “Not to sound dismissive, but their problems aren’t ours. We should spend the night.” I looked to her, and worry knit her brows together. I scrambled to paint myself in a better light. “Course, if you want to ask, we can see if it’s something we can help with, but wiping out some feral ghouls to kickstart a tiny town’s economy isn’t something well within my skill set.”  
Sighing, she shook her head and stuck her tongue in her cheek. “Don’t think I have the ammunition for it, anyway. Let’s just go find a bed and a bath.”  
Shooting her a sidelong grin, I said, “Don’t suppose you need any help with that?”  
Again, she rolled her eyes, but didn’t seem too tired of me yet. In the administrative building at the motel, we found a mousy looking woman, likely around Cassidy’s age, but her weathered features amplified by the thick glasses she wore and her unflattering blazer made her look older. That and how much larger her nose was than her chin put me off of her automatically. I knew it likely ridiculous that her appearance alone indicated her character, but I felt that way all the same. With the way she wrinkled and upturned her nose at our sweaty, dusty selves, I figured she felt similarly.  
“What can I do for you, erm, ladies?” Her lips curled into a fake smile. “I’m Jeannie May Crawford. Welcome to Novac.”  
Cassidy looked to me and I shrugged at her. She turned back to Jeannie May and said, “A room and a couple baths, if you could.”  
She nodded and slid a notepad from her desk into her hand, a pencil beside it as she leaned back in her chair. “One or two beds? We’ve one vacancy for each kind of room, but the two bed room is cheaper.”  
I cocked an eyebrow. “Why is it cheaper? Bedbugs?”  
She shook her head. “Not anymore. The sheets are being boiled, though, so you’ll have to use your own blankets for the first night.”  
Glancing at Cassidy, she seemed not to object, so I looked back to Jeannie May and said, “Ought to be alright with us.”  
She nodded. “Thirty caps for the rooms and the baths. I’ll have someone by with buckets and basins within the hour. Enjoy your stay.” She gave me the key to the room after I paid, and Cassidy and I left her false smiles and bug eyes behind.  
After shutting the door behind us, Cassidy said, “I sure fucking hope they’ve got some whiskey here, or at least someone who’s good with moonshine. Otherwise I’ll be having trouble getting to sleep, especially if I have to deal with that creepy bitch again.” She scoffed and shook her head, but I let her words comfort me in my own assumptions about Jeannie May. Looking up at the setting sun, she sighed. “Fucking hell, it feels like nothing happens until sunset anymore. That’s when other people start drinking with me, it’s when we arrive in places, it’s when we set up camp or get ambushed. Speaking of, are we setting a watch tonight?”  
I shook my head. “I came through here a little while ago. They’ve got snipers that watch from the mouth of the dinosaur statue day and night. I’ve met both of them and they’re NCR vets, 1st Recon. Doesn’t get much better as for people looking out for you.”  
Cassidy shrugged and pointed to one of the door sinto the motel as we walked towards it. “This is us. If you trust the snipers, that’s enough for me, but I can’t say I wouldn’t rather have you watching my back.”  
Smirking, I seized another opportunity. “Don’t worry Cass, I’m always watching your ass for you.”  
Pleasantly enough, she laughed as I started opening the door. “Yeah, well it’s a sweaty mess right now. And don’t tell me if you’re into the nasty shit; I’m not. I’m just glad that we’re finally getting the opportunity to bathe properly.”  
True to what Jeannie May said, the beds in the room were stripped entirely clear, but other than that and the lamp on the dresser being low on oil, it seemed fine. I set my bag down with a relieved sigh and sagged onto one of the beds. The springs poked at my ass, but it was still a whole lot better than nothing. “Honestly, I feel the same. So, how’s this going to play out, then?” I asked, removing my boots and socks.  
“How’s what going to play out?” I glanced over to find Cassidy performing the same action. “Bathing? I’m pretty sure you would be a hell of a lot less appealing if you didn’t know how to bathe, Maria.”  
I shrugged. “Just haven’t bathed in front of someone else since, well, since New Reno.” That wasn’t true. It was Independence with Oriana and some of the other settlers, but she didn’t need to know about everything in my history. “Not since I was a kid.”  
“Even so,” Cassidy said, a somewhat surprised tone audible, “bathing in New Reno at all is dangerous, even as a kid, and not just because you have to boil the water beforehand. How’d you deal with all the assholes staring and shit?”  
“I didn’t.” I took off my jacket and winced at the smell wafting from my armpits. Yeah, it’d be good to shower. “Mom and dad did. Once, when I was fifteen, somebody finally gathered the courage to do a little more than looking. Mom stepped away for two minutes to go shit, and some asshole, a big guy I probably couldn’t have fought off easily, dropped by, decided to try some shit with me. I yelled, and get this.” I lifted up a hand and chuckled, decreasing the concern in Cassidy’s expression somewhat. “Mom came charging around the corner, pants off, toilet paper stuck to her thigh, took him to the ground with a piece of rebar through his ribs, then took her knife and carved him open.” I made a motion across my belly, as my mother did, albeit more violently, with the knife. “She pulled his guts out, just roaring the entire time. After then cutting his throat, she took his cock off and stuffed it between his teeth.” I was bent over by then, laughing to the point of almost convulsing. “I just got back in the bath and started getting the flying blood and gore off of me.”  
When I looked up, a broad smile on my face and tears beading at the corners of my eyes, the corner of Cassidy’s lip curled up in a smirk, but that same concern was again at her eyes. “My mom probably would’ve done the same. Can’t say he didn’t deserve it, either.”  
I chuckled. “Yeah, he did. It’s not over, though, the story. She dragged him out to the mouth of the alley I bathed in and started driving the rebar up through his body, then. Took her most of the day, but we had our own little warning, an eviscerated, spiked man to tell people nobody touched her baby girl.” I left my mouth with its own little smirk. “I haven’t kept up quite that level of intimidation, but I like to think people still know not to fuck with the Trujillos.”  
Confusion crossed her face for a half a second before realization replaced it. “Right, that’s your last name. Sorry, I’d be more present if I’d had a drink in the past forty eight hours. You want to head out with me, find something to drink?”  
I shook my head. “I’ll take my bath while you’re out, if you don’t mind. If you need me to look after you, I’ll come with, but you seem like you can handle drinking alone.”  
She threw up her hands and out her boots back on, having taken them off to stretch out a bit. “Yeah, I can, I guess. Don’t drown in the tub, alright? I’ll be back, um, before sunrise, probably. I’ll see you in a bit.”  
I smiled at her, waved, and watched her leave before taking off my belt. I considered shooting up right away, the craving for some Med-X having nagged at me for the past couple days, much the same as Cass and her whiskey, to hear her say it. Chills had started, and I played off the sweating as just walking around in the sun, but my wrists would twitch and the red track marks at the crook of my elbow almost seemed to itch.  
Sitting there in the dimly lit room, waiting for strangers to arrive with water and a couple tubs, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. I didn’t much care that the workers here might make me for a user or a killer or a drifter, I was all those things, but I cared more that this town was small, that they might spread word about my troubles, and also that, when I came through about three weeks ago, I was doing differently. I’d only just begun to use Med-X in earnest, then, at first to kill the splitting headaches but later on to kill the cravings and the panic attacks. If the workers caught me, they might tell Manny, the only person I’d really talked to the first time I came through, and he might do something. I worried less about Cass. At least I used in moderation, mostly. If she didn’t change her course of heavy drinking, her liver would probably give before she hit fifty.  
When a knock came at my door and I opened it, I found three people standing before me. The lead man, somewhat muscled with a beard that could use a comb and a wash, carried a pair of metal buckets filled with water, the skinny woman behind him carried a wooden tub, and the adolescent boy beside her cradled another tub. “Here you go, ma’am,” the boy said, stepping forward and setting down the tub. The woman did the same, repeating his words, and the man just nodded my way, leaving the buckets beside the door. They seemed to pay me little mind, proving my worry unfounded. “If you want some more water, you can fill the buckets up at the well or leave them outside your door; we’ll have them refilled in the morning.”  
I took the materials inside the room, finding soap and washcloths and towels within the tubs. The buckets, apparently, had sat in the sun, so the water was warm inside them, and the tubs and washcloths looked clean enough. Though I had the evening to myself and I had that Med-X nagging at me from inside my satchel, I made myself wash my body and clothes, leaving the oil lamp on, before I decided I could have a little fun.  
I wrapped my left upper arm up tight in my belt in order to expose the veins towards my elbow. Even so, after sterilizing the syringe in alcohol and measuring out a safe-ish, if high dosage, I had to turn myself towards the lamp in order to accurately see my veins. After shooting up, I moved quickly, stowing my belt and the chems before relaxing back into my bath, a few inches of lukewarm, silty, murky water. As the chem started to lift my head from my shoulders and curl my mouth into a snail’s shell, with one of my last moments of clarity, I threw my arm over the side of the tub to keep it out of the water and thus keep it from getting infected.  
Then I sank into mud. I was back in Independence, lying naked in the mud made after we diverted the river to run by the town. Oriana laid next to me, and while normally dreams of this kind would lead to sex, in this one, I just felt her warm body snuggled up next to me. I nuzzled into her hair, the floating and slight sliding through the mud alongside her caressing making me believe in the God of my father and the spirits of my mother. I kissed her hair, and found myself having trouble breathing. When I noticed this, though, I was coughing on the hair, on the mud mixing with it, and when I tried to extricate myself, I only pushed my face further into the mud. I slipped, smacked my head against Oriana’s, I couldn’t see, my nose and mouth were stuck and mashed into the mud, I thrashed and kept punching Oriana’s bones, her elbows, her skull, and I tried to apologize but the mud made me just cough and cough and-  
Then I was crashing onto my side, onto solid wood. I heaved, coughing up water and hair, and dragged hair from my tongue with my fingers. I opened my eyes and found the wood beneath me swimming, swaying and bowing as dirty water washed across it. All at once, as I caught my breath, the euphoric mellow encasing me found me again. Something, a foot, probably, turned me over to look up, and I found a beautiful face looking down on me. Beautiful and Oriana were tied together in my head, so I assumed this was Oriana, and after coughing out some water that I thought was mud, I sputtered, “Y-you’re goddamn amazing, Oriana.”  
This woman, Oriana probably, lifted me up by the armpits, wrapped me up in a scratchy towel, and laid me down on the bed. My eyes kept hanging on hers, but after a moment, I realized that this woman’s eyes were blue, and Oriana’s were very much brown, and this woman had wrinkles and bags and freckles, and Oriana had these gorgeous eyelashes and this wasn’t her. I furrowed my brow, thinking as hard as I could while my brain was floating on clouds.  
I finally registered that she let out a laugh and said, “Who’s Oriana?” by the time I recognized her as Cass. I blinked once, hard, and though I saw my surroundings through a layer of poison, I also remembered where I was. “I’m Cass. And you’re fuckin’ high, aren’t you, Maria?” Her slurring almost made her words indecipherable in my addled state. “Yeah, you are. Well, thanks for filling up the other tub a bit, and I’m sorry for bumping you out of your tub, but I’m gross as fuck right now, and I need to wash up. Take a nap.” She patted me on the forehead and stood up. When she started stripping, my eyes widened, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt blood rushing to my cheeks and my crotch as she bent over, but when her ankle caught on her pant leg, sending her tumbling to the floor, a mild panic took over.  
“C-Cass, don’t die, durable dame.” I let out a string of quiet chuckles at my alliteration before realizing again that she might be hurt. She stood up, pants on the floor, now, and chuckled, shaking her head. “Holy shit. I like looking at lady legs.” Again, I laughed, a string of misshapen things that dribbled out of my mouth with the water that had after I nearly drowned.  
She put her hands on her hips, broad things with a bit of sagging skin, but I found my eyes kept trailing over to the red bush between her legs. Most of the girls I’d slept with since I last had a dedicated lover were whores, who seemed to think that trimming their pubes looked nice. I just liked having a woman in bed with me, assuming she wasn’t a total asshole. “Didn’t I say to take a fuckin’ nap, Maria? Turn around. Come on, now.” I grumbled, but rolled over, still wrapped up in my towel. “And if I catch you trying any more of that voyeur nonsense, I’ll smash your needles and dump out your Med-X, you hear me?”  
I moaned, “Nooooooooo,” and while I felt the urge to turn over to catch a glimpse of her breasts, sleep called me just as hard. Though my still wet hair would end up soaking the mattress and I would wake up with a sore shoulder from sleeping at an awkward angle, I answered the call of sleep.  
I awoke to a slap on the ass. Despite the sharp stinging, I opened my eyes slowly and raised my head in a similar manner, taking a few seconds to blink away the haze and find Cassidy standing before me, hands on her now clothed hips. I smirked at the memory, but she scowled down at me. “Get up, chem head. Your clothes are dry and I’m sick of looking at your naked ass, so get up.”  
I propped myself up on my elbow and let my smirk grow wider as her eyes flicked to my breasts for a moment, tiny things as they were. “You sure about that? I’m sure I’m skinny enough we could fit two people on this bed.” I wasn’t totally sure about that, still in a bit of a haze from the lingering Med-X and the sleep. “We’re clean, now. No more excuses, Cass.”  
Rolling her eyes, she walked around my bed to where I’d hung my clothes up by the window and plucked my shirt down, tossing it over her shoulder to float down across my hips. “If you hadn’t tried to fucking drown yourself last night, I might’ve considered that. As it is, though, we’ve got a long way to go before I start crowding twin bed with you.”  
“I’ve got a room in Freeside. Surprisingly nice queen bed.” With a grunt, I forced myself to stand up and grabbed my shirt, conceding to get dressed and informing her of that by doing so. “Shouldn’t even be three days before we get there.”  
She set my panties down on the bed and kept her eyes down and away, but I figured it was for some reason other than modesty. “Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you. Ask of you, I guess. And before you ask, it’s not related to sex, you fucker. I wanted to visit the spot where Cassidy Caravans died. See the wreckage, pay my respects.” She kicked her feet together and I furrowed my brow, not used too seeing her shy in any capacity. “It’s a bit out of the way, so if you don’t want to go or you want to put it off, I understand.”  
I scoffed. “Who the fuck do you think I am, Cass?” She scowled and started to open her mouth, looking up at me, but I said, “Of course we’ll visit. I’m not just some heartless horndog chem head, you know. I do actually give a shit about you. Well.” I smirked, glancing away in mock thought. “At least one shit. Maybe even two.”  
She rolled her eyes, but let a smile play across her lips at my response. “Hi-fuckin-larious. Now come on. Let’s get going.”  
She started for the door, intending to give me a bit of privacy to change, but I said, “Hey, wait,” and she did, glancing over her shoulder at me with a coy smirk. My smile turned sheepish. “I do remember what you did for me last night. Thanks. I, um, I don’t-”  
Lifting a hand, palm out, Cassidy shut me up. She furrowed her brow, looking at me with concerned, pained eyes. “Don’t tell me thanks for keeping you from drowning in four inches of water while you were high. You’ve been through and done way too much shit to die that way, so don’t thank me. If you actually are glad to still be alive, then never make me do that again.” Then she turned back around and stepped out the door. Before it shut behind her, she said, “I’ll wait a few minutes for you to get ready, but hurry. I want to cover as much ground as possible before the sun gets worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the next chapter: foul language, alcohol abuse, drunken attempts at romance, some violence, some discussion of sex


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass and Maria look for some dead bodies and drink together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: foul language, alcohol abuse, drunken attempts at romance, some violence, some discussion of sex

In the shade of a rocky outcropping, Cassidy and I took turns scanning the horizon with the one pair of binoculars we had between us. “Should be around here, according to that mark on the map that I got from that ranger.” She shook her head and chuckled as I looked through the binoculars, she examining the map. “Took him to bed and learned some of the most important bullshit I’ve learned so far, and I can’t even remember his fuckin’ name. That doesn’t tell you who I am, don’t know what does.” I lowered the binoculars and she turned to me, grinning. 

I rolled my eyes and passed the binoculars. “Well, I didn’t find anything, and this sun is making it damn hard to look out at the sands. Think we might have more luck if we just go on down the road looking for it?”

She shrugged and peered through the binoculars. “Don’t know. Let’s keep looking for a few more minutes. Don’t want to be wandering blind, but we might be more lucky wandering blind than from under here.”

I took a swig from my canteen around my neck and shrugged. “Yeah, but here I get to be up close with you. Too fucking hot out there for that.” As she turned to me with an incredulous scoff, I smirked at her and scooted a little closer. She shook her head and looked back through the binoculars. Unluckily for whatever I was hoping to accomplish through physical proximity, she pointed forward, exclaiming. 

“Look! Carrion birds. Probably crows, maybe some vultures.” Her face fell, and I realized that she’d been grinning thanks to my flirting. “Let’s go; I want to see what we can find.” She stood up and helped me to my feet before stowing her binoculars. Looking out to the horizon, where she’d pointed, I caught something in the air, but couldn’t make it out. That’s what the binoculars were for, I suppose. 

“Let’s get going, then,” I said, putting my leather rattan hat back on and hoisting my bags onto my shoulders. As we stepped back out into the sun, I snapped some goggles over my eyes as a gust of wind kicked sand up towards them. “So what’re you hoping to find out there? Was probably just some Powder Gangers or Jackals or something.”

“Hoping for evidence,” Cassidy said. “I’m not sure what kind of evidence, but if we can figure out what did them in, I’d like to deliver some justice.” 

I let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Don’t suppose you mean taking it to the NCR and hoping they can finally get off their asses and do something for their, ah, citizens.” 

Her expression soured a little. “I ain’t going to trust them to deliver justice, especially when they’re as corrupt and inefficient as they are, but they’ve done some good around here. Roads are mostly safer. Way I heard it, used to be that before the NCR came around here, you couldn’t walk five miles along I-15 without getting your ass jumped.”

“Your caravan still got burnt.” 

She sighed and shook her head. “I know. As for the Legion, they’re slavers, rapists and misogynists, but at least their roads are safe, heh.” 

I put a tentative hand on her shoulder, and to my relief, she gave me a grateful half smile instead of shying away like I expected her to. “Don’t worry about institutional justice, Cass. We’re going to find whoever did it and kick their asses from here to the fucking moon.”

Her smile widened a bit. “I’m going to hold you to that.” 

“Wouldn’t expect anything different.” 

Before I actually saw anything on the ground, the wind carried the stink of decay to my nostrils. Over a short period of time, I caught sight of some six crows and two vultures working on some corpses, beaks all red with blood and viscera. One of the crows turned towards us and cawed. They looked to not want to give up their food, but when Cass sent one of the vultures tumbling end over end, leaving behind feathers and one leg using her shotgun, the others took to the sky. “Suppose that one’s dinner?” 

She nodded, but seemed almost not to hear me, her brow furrowed in concentration as she knelt beside one of the corpses. With one white knuckled hand, she clutched her shotgun as she pulled aside some of the tattered and burnt clothing. The birds had worked this poor fucker’s head down to the skull over most of it, and on one side of the jaw, skin still sloughed off. “Think this one was the caravan leader, Jack,” she said. Her voice carried no quaver, as though she were talking about where to put puzzle pieces together. A surge of admiration swelled in my chest as I realized this, but I said nothing, knowing that she still likely felt the loss, but wanted to focus on the work at hand. 

I trudged through the sand over to the pack brahmin, on its side. It looked even uglier after being half incinerated, blackened bone peeked through some of the ash on its hips. The equipment it’d been carrying was nearly all burnt to fine dust, and sifting through it, I found an empty glass bottle, two 9mm rounds that hadn’t been fired yet, and a curious little cylinder. Black plastic capped it, and it looked to have a positive and negative end. 

I turned back to Cass and lifted it up, saying, “Hey, I found a microfusion cell. Pretty sure it’s empty.” 

She approached me and took the microfusion cell from me, turning it over in her hands. “Yeah, it’s empty alright. And that guy I was looking over, Jack, he was missing a hand that should’ve been pinned beneath him, but it was disintegrated. Not just burned.” She chewed her lower lip, it already chapped, and sighed. “Looks like they were hit with energy weapons. Could’ve been Fiends; they sometimes have energy weapons, but they usually loot the caravans they raid, not just burn them. Something’s up here. It’s like they hit it just to hit it.”

I gestured to the other bodies. “Let’s see what we can find. Could be your caravaneers managed to take one of them down with them. We’d probably do good to take their ammo, too.” 

She scoffed. “Ain’t like they’re using it.” 

We spent a good hour picking over the bodies of the caravaneers, taking their ammo, looking for clues, and trying to ignore the dried shit and decay stinks mixing together. After swallowing a retch for the fifth time, I stood up from the one third skeleton, one third ash and one third partially eaten corpse I was looking over. I turned to tell Cass we should leave when I spotted something behind her. A little lump of sand sat there, perpendicular to the dunes, so I knew it wasn’t formed by just the wind. I started for it and said, “Hey Cass, come take a look at this.” 

I crouched beside the mound of sand as she stepped up behind me. I put my hand in the sand and scooped backwards, pulling some away and revealing some black ceramic armor plating. Then the sand erupted and a huge, greyish blue pincer clamped around my forearm. I tried to pull back, but it held fast, pinching tight until I felt something give in my arm and let out a grunt. The rest of the greyhound sized scorpion sifted out of the sand, leaving behind a half-eaten body that I paid no attention to, instead going for the pistol on my hip. Just as I pulled it out of the holster, though, the huge stinger snapped forward. I tried to dodge to the side, but it still slammed into my chest plate, cracking it partially and sending me stumbling backwards as it released me. 

Luckily, Cassidy caught me around the the back of shoulders as the scorpion retreated a few yards. “Are you okay?” I nodded quickly and pointed to the scorpion, even as she drew her revolver and lifted it to the scorpion. “Well, keep your feet, then,” she said and released me. I watched as she brought both hands to her revolver and dumped four rounds into it while it charged her. The first two tore its stinger off, and the second two pulped its brain. As it tumbled over onto its back, legs curling up, Cass turned to me and set to reloading. 

“How bad’s your arm?” she asked. I lifted it and winced, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. Nothing poked through the skin and I couldn’t feel any blood, but the constant, sharp pain distracted me. “That bad, huh?” She holstered her weapon and stepped over to me. “Roll up your sleeve and let’s take a look.” I snapped my goggles up onto my forehead so that the scratches in the lenses wouldn’t impede my vision anymore and complied, grunting and wincing all the while. Cassidy smirked and let out a quick chuckle as I rolled up my sleeve. 

“What’s so fucking funny?” I grit my teeth and lifted my arm into the light. Some nasty swelling and bruising already formed on the underside of my forearm, and Cassidy relieved some of the pain by holding my wrist and taking the weight off the injury. 

“Nothing, I just remembered something.” She prodded the fledgling swelling and I groaned through my teeth, resisting the urge to scream. Her grin broadened, and she shook her head. “Sorry, it’s just that I was making almost those exact noises the first time a guy convinced me to try anal. God, it was like being stabbed.” She pinched the upper side of my arm and I winced, but to a lesser extent than before. 

She tied my arm up into a sling with a bandana that, luckily, did not smell of the corpse she borrowed it from. “Thanks, Cass,” I muttered, turning back to where I found the radscorpion. “There was something in there with it, though.” I crouched by the mound of sand and, more carefully this time, scooped some of it out of the way with one hand. Cassidy helped. 

As we uncovered the corpse of a Van Graff thug, Cassidy said, “Motherfucker. Motherfucker!” She kicked the half eaten corpse in the broken breastplate. Suddenly, she whirled on me, her face contorted with hate as she jabbed her finger towards me. “Is this why you’re taking me to Vegas? So that Gloria can put me in front of a fucking firing squad?” 

I shook my head. “Jean-Baptiste just said he wanted to talk with you! That’s all, I swear. And now that we know what they did, we don’t have to do that. I won’t do that.” I put on a more determined face, and she looked a bit less like she would rip my head off, her shoulders falling back and her scowl lightening. “I’ve spent enough time working with and against murderers to know that I don’t want to be on their side anymore.” Cassidy took a few steps away, whipping her hat off with one hand and running her other hand through her hair, looking vibrant red in the sun. “So what do you want to do?” 

The scowl returned, but at least I knew it wasn’t directed at me anymore as she said, “Let’s go make that bitch Gloria eat her own hair.”

I smirked and nodded. “Sounds about right to me. Should probably get my arm healed up first, though. Don’t suppose you have a stim to spare?”

She scoffed and fished one out of her bag, tossing it for me to catch with my good hand. “Always got to be prepared, right?” I nodded as I injected the stim, feeling the pounding pain begin to subside. “Those things are expensive as all Hell, though, so I hope you know I wouldn’t give one to just anyone.” 

I gave her a pained grin even as the pain in my forearm subsided and said, “I appreciate it. Then again, I am helping you take out the Van Graffs.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re hoping for a piece of ass afterwards, then keep dreaming.” Her tone was amiable, but her expression somber. She glanced up at the sun, taking off her hat for a moment. It occurred to me that I’d never seen her tied back red hair hanging loose. She took stock of the angle of the sun and said, “Figure it’s a bit past noon. We can make a bit of progress towards Vegas before it’s time to set up camp, get back to the road, at least.” She donned her hat and looked at me as I undid the sling, my arm mostly better already. 

*****

I found a spot with some more solid ground than the ever shifting sand that made up most of the area along the road. With the sun hanging low on the horizon, I took my blanket from my pack and laid it on the ground. Previously, we agreed Cass would take first watch, so I sat down to try to get to sleep, but she said, “Hang on, I want to talk to you.” 

I pushed myself back to a sitting up position and put my elbows on my knees, legs folded. “Oh? Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

Leaning on one foot and pursing her lips, Cass said, “I’m not the biggest fan of talking while walking. Especially with how hot it was today.” 

I shrugged. “Suppose that makes sense. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

She put a hand on her hip, and her eyes followed something on the ground by her feet. “Part of it’s I wanted to thank you. Getting me out of the Outpost, not pressing the issue with the fucking and whatnot. Then you went and said you’ll help me with dishing out revenge.” Her eyes finally found me, and she wore this sheepish expression I was unused to on her. “I just didn’t expect anything much to come from me selling out to Crimson Caravans, even less from hanging around the woman who convinced me to.” 

Shooting her a grin that was half suave and half genuine, I said, “Yeah, well, a lot of girls underestimate me based on first impressions.” She rolled her eyes and looked like she was about to drop it, but I said, “Thank you, though, for the honesty. It’s refreshing when I’m usually dealing with swindlers and murderers, whether or not they’re outlaws.” 

“That brings me to my next question.” The sheepish look slid off her face in place of something a little more worried. “Who’s Oriana? And why’d you think I was her when you were high?” 

I blinked a couple times, not expecting this line of questioning. “Do you have any more of that whiskey you got in Novac?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m going to have to be drunk, high, or sexed to talk about this.” I shrugged, palms open and facing upwards. “I’ll be more willing to spill my guts for you, like you did for me, and that’s what it’s going to take, so do you want to share, or do you want to drop it?”

She shook her head with an incredulous sigh, but reached in her backpack to fish out her flask of whiskey, a little more than half full. She took a seat next to me on my blanket and, after I took a hefty swig of the whiskey, feeling it burn my throat and set my head to lighten, she took a drink. “So are you ready to talk, yet?”

I took the bottle back and drained it to less than half before letting out a burp and passing it back. “Figure so, yeah. What do you want to know about Oriana?”

“Who is she?”

“A dead Californian. What next?” I avoided looking at her, my stomach swimming from the drink and from the dread. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Cass nodding. “Why did you think I was her when you were high?”

I shrugged. “She was beautiful, you are beautiful. I figure the drug tied the two of you together because that’s the word that comes to mind when I think of either you or her.”

“I can’t claim to understand that, but people do and think crazy shit when they’re not in control.” She chuckled. “I’ve called a couple one nighters the wrong name when fuckin’ while drunk.” Silence took up the space between us for a few seconds, then Cass took another long drink. “So who was she to you? This chick was obviously more than a one nighter.”

Letting out a rueful chuckle, I nodded. “Yeah. She, uh, she was practically my wife.” I shook my head. “NCR made us relocate, she died on the road. Gave me too much of her water.” Thinking of her, my eyes started to water, and I hoped Cass couldn’t see it in the evening light. Luckily, the desert air made my nose too dry to run. 

Cassidy took another sip of whiskey and handed the bottle to me. As I drank, she said, “That’s rough. Dunno what to say, never been good at words to be honest.”

About that point, the drink hit me about as hard as the bullet that put me in the dirt out near Goodsprings. I blinked, and the sands swayed and my thoughts came through molasses. So I abandoned rational thought and finally turned to Cass. The water in my eyes seemed to take her off guard, but the lunging kiss I planted on her chapped lips caught her more. I planted a hand on my blanket beneath us and steadied myself on her shoulder with the other hand while she held the bottle of whiskey aloft, careful not to spill. 

She didn’t lean into it, at first at least. She pushed back, at first because I thought she was finally getting into it after a couple awkward seconds of lip mashing, but then she just pushed me off with her free hand, and I sat back up, the thought to say something slick coming a few seconds too late. “Leave it for Vegas, Maria,” she said, standing up with the bottle in hand. “I ain’t gonna fuck you if you’re smelly or if you’re high, so leave it. I’m going on watch.” 

I watched her step away and begin her watch sitting on top of a bombed out car on the side of the road, taking periodic swigs, and silently cursed myself for being foolish. Sure, being vulnerable with girls usually got them to open their legs if they were being stubborn, but Cass wasn’t just a one nighter, as she would say. She cared about the sweat and the trail dust, sure, but I doubted she would just screw as soon as I cleaned up either. A lonely girl might sleep with me if I talked pretty and told her what she wanted to hear, but Cass stood up straight, she thought of me as more than a warm body for her bed, more than a one nighter. It might help if I started to think of her as more than that, too. 

*****

I dreamt a nightmare that night. I don’t remember quite how it went, but something about Joana eating me out only for me to find out she’s a rotting corpse as I was getting halfway into it. When Cass woke me up for my watch, I still felt half drunk. I’d sweated out half the whiskey I drank already, and the other half was in my bladder, so I stood up rather quickly, intending to go find a spot to empty it, but Cass interrupted me first. 

“Hey, I’ve got another question for you, now.” 

“Can it wait until I piss first?” I let out a sigh and put a hand on my hip. 

She shrugged. “Sure, but I’m not likely to forget if that’s what you’re hoping for.” 

I waved the comment off as I went to go squat behind the car that we’d been taking watch on. After doing what I needed to and taking a drink of water from my canteen, I headed back over, an expectant look on my face and a hand on my hip. “Well? What do you want?”

“I want to know,” she said, pausing a moment as she unfurled her blanket, “why you kissed me, and I want to know who this fuckin Joana chick you were moaning about was.” 

I scratched at one of the scars on my scalp, glancing at the cracks in the asphalt. “I kissed you because you, ah, you’re beautiful and I was drunk. And Joana’s a whore. Best ass in Vegas.” I let out a quick chuckle, shaking my head. 

Cass scoffed and folded her arms. “It didn’t sound like any wet dream I’ve ever heard of. Too many “stops” and “I’m sorries” to be sexy.”

For a moment, I sucked my teeth and shuffled my feet, not used to all this personal shit. “I might have promised I’d visit her again. She’s practically stuck in slavery under the Omertas in Vegas. She’s an addict, though, a bit more hardcore than me, and chances are that she’s going to end up dead from a customer being too rough or from being too rough on herself with the chems before I actually see her again.”

She looked down and kicked one boot against the other. “So, uh, you go whoring a lot, then?” 

I shrugged. “Sometimes. And I don’t make indentured servants screw me usually, I didn’t know that about Joana until after we had, well, until we’d finished fucking.” I scoffed and shook my head, looking away from Cass. “I’ve been trying not to think about her. Thinking about her situation makes me want to vomit, if I’m being honest.” 

Cass nodded. “Yeah, I get the same way thinking about what’s happening across the river, in the Legion. Hang on, how’s this happening in Vegas? The NCR doesn’t let this sort of shit go on in their borders.”

“Vegas ain’t NCR just yet, and the Omertas that run Gomorrha where Joana is stuck have some kind of arrangement with House and the NCR.” I ground my teeth and pounded one hand with my other. “Wish I could just march in there with a suit of power armor and a gatling laser and fucking mince the people keeping her stuck there.”

“Well, unless you’ve got friends in the Brotherhood of Steel that I don’t know about, I figure that’s not really an option, huh?” She shook her head and stuck her tongue in her cheek for a second. “Well, there’s a chance we could sneak her out. Give her some proper clothes, glasses, a hat.” 

I shot her a confused look. “I thought you’d be more preoccupied with taking down the Van Graffs.”

She shrugged. “I sure as shit want to tear the Silver Rush to the ground, but I figured, with you helping me with this, I should help you out in return, yeah?”

I resisted the urge to laugh at her and her sense of honor, but though I found it ironically naive, I also had to admit to myself that it was endearing. Instead of laughing, I gnawed my lower lip. “I appreciate it, Cass. You’re, uh, you’re a stand-up lady.” 

She froze in her absent minded fidgeting and let out a quiet, breathy chuckle. “Quit it, Maria. It’s unbecoming of tough old bitches to blush, I’m told.” Taking a seat on her own blanket, Cass said, “Now get to watchin’ already. I need to get some sleep, especially if we’re going to be killing some weapons dealers in a few days.”

“Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the following chapter: foul language, alcohol and drug abuse, explicit sex, lots of violence, disassociation.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: foul language, alcohol and drug abuse, explicit sex, lots of violence, disassociation.

I shook that night, my hands and my mind, despite it not being terribly cool. The Med-X in my satchel called to me, and other things shook me, too, fear and uncertainty, mostly. I recalled the first time I met Gloria Van Graff. Two men in suits stood before her and her brother. Jean-Baptiste had a plasma rifle leveled at them, a humming device covered in narrow pipes and faintly glowing metal. The suited men were indebted to Gloria, at least that’s what I got from the latter half of the conversation that I was present for. 

Jean-Baptiste shot one of them, slinging a ball of plasma as big as a bottlecap at one of them. It spattered across the poor bastard’s face, setting the skin and underlying muscle to melting immediately. He collapsed to his knees, letting out a wail such that I’d never forget. With all the gunfights I’d been in, I’d heard plenty of anguished screams, but the kind of screams a person lets out when their head is turning to liquid are a different kind than when a bullet gets lodged in their belly. The smell is different, too. The sounds and smells of that man’s death shook me when I watched it happen and they shook me then. After watching it happen, I knew just about one thing: I never wanted to be on the bad side of the Van Graffs. 

I should’ve left Cass as she slept. Maybe then she would’ve abandoned this revenge idea. Aside from that being awfully hypocritical considering my motivations behind killing Benny at the Tops casino, I found that I couldn’t make myself run. I told myself it was because her ass just swayed too nice, but if I was only sticking around for her ass, I would’ve done something different. I didn’t even take out the Med-X that night, wanting to be sober on my watch so that I wouldn’t miss anything, worried more about Cass than about me. 

Finding myself watching Cass sleep, I decided to take a walk in order to clear my head and, in a practical sense, to make sure nobody was sneaking up on us. It didn’t work. Just kept thinking about how her chapped lips tasted like cheap whiskey, about the flames in her eyes and in the two strands of red hair that got loose from the tie when she got pissed about something, about how straight upright she stood. For a reason I couldn’t place, I thought I should say sorry to Oriana, wherever she was. 

*****

Vegas reared its head over the horizon and I asked Cassidy as we walked under the noonday sun, “So what’s the plan? The Van Graffs are some bad news, Cass, and we should be kitted out as best we can be when we take them out.” 

“Hm.” She thought for a few seconds, still walking. “You’ve been in there, so you know what the place is laid out like and what they sell, right?” I nodded. “And the Crimson Caravans wanted to buy Cassidy Caravans, right?” Again, I nodded. “So you go get paid for running that job, use the money to get some explosives from the Gun Runners, blow up the entire building so that the motherfuckers suffocate under the roof.” I stumbled and stopped, blinking rapidly as Cass turned towards me with a quizzical look under her hat. “You good?”

I banished the fear from my eyes and thought, So that’s what I sound like. No wonder Joana tried to run from me, all that anger and acid, dripping from her tongue. I suppressed a shiver. “Yeah. What about the guard out front? They keep a guy with a plasma rifle out there lately. I’m quick on the draw, but he’ll be wearing body armor, too.” I knocked on my own ceramic Van Graff breastplate. “Nine millimeter ain’t getting through one of these easily.”

Shrugging, Cassidy said, “So get up close to him. You know him, right? Just say you’ve got to talk to the boss, and when you’re next to him, pull your pistol and blast his brains out.” 

I thumbed my lower lip and got to walking again. “That just might work. Simon’s experienced, but I’m a pretty fast talker, he shouldn’t suspect anything.” 

Cassidy nodded and tapped on the stock of the shotgun slung over her shoulder. “I’ve got a few slugs that ought to handle ceramic armor, so I could watch the door and fuck anyone up that tries to come through while you go around the building planting the explosives. Now, unless you’ve got experience with explosives, then we’re going to have to get a lot just to be sure, so how much-”

I raised a hand, interrupting her, and said, “I’ve got experience blowing shit up. Don’t worry about that.” She raised an eyebrow, but I barely noticed as we walked, and I pretended that I didn’t. 

*****

Heading back into Freeside, I kept a hand on my pistol and my eyes on the poor folks around me, the weak and unwary regularly getting mugged in the middle of the street in this part of the city. The dull roar of the Strip a quarter mile away past rows of dilapidated buildings distracted me and called to me, and I felt the urge to go get strung out and blow two hundred caps on blackjack, but instead I used the money Mclafferty gave me to buy explosives, and I still hadn’t figured out why I was helping this half-stranger blow up an arms dealer. 

We looked down the road to the Silver Rush, where the Van Graffs had set up shop, a few slop shops, shitty casinos and whorehouses between us and it. I stopped and turned to Cass. I pointed to a boarded up brick building near the Silver Rush and said, “After I take out Simon, get in there. There’s a side entrance that you’ll probably need to kick open, but you’ll be able to have a good vantage point to look out over the shop.” 

Cass nodded and flipped off a prostitute that offered us a threesome. “Got it. Slugs are already loaded, and I hope you’ll hurry, but leave a couple of the shitheads for me, yeah?” 

I gave her a dismissive wave, but my chest tightened a little bit. I didn’t like Simon overmuch, so I told myself it was because of the torturous death machine he held in front of him as I walked down the street, by which I mean a plasma rifle. Marching up towards him, I nodded, and he greeted me. “Maria. So where’s the chick you were supposed to find?” 

I shrugged and shook my head. “Couldn’t find her. Gotta talk to the boss.” 

He nodded, a somber look on his face. “Godspeed, heh.” Then he turned away, watching the street. In a flash, I drew my pistol and pressed it against his temple. He had just enough time to say, “Hey, w-,” before my bullet passed through his skull and brain, spraying out the other side. He collapsed, blood leaking from his skull as people on the street screamed and took cover and I holstered my pistol. I glanced to the side, seeing Cass heading down the street towards me as I pulled the four bundles of dynamite from my satchel. 

I set a bundle of the explosives by one corner of the building, making sure that the fuse was still tied to the other bundles. Taking more than a moment, though, turned out poorly as the one door in and out of the Silver Rush opened. I went for the rifle over my shoulder, but the Van Graff thug standing before me took quick stock of the situation, hefting his laser rifle at my head. At this range of just a few yards, he wouldn’t miss. 

Cassidy’s first slug smashed the guy’s ceramic breastplate to pieces, throwing him back against the door and probably cracking a few ribs. Less than half a second passed as she dumped the other barrel into him, folding him over as the other slug punched through his belly. I hurried round the side of the building, glancing at her and seeing Cass take cover in the adjacent building I’d suggested earlier. I placed the next bundle by that corner as I heard laser fire start up around the front, the high energy blasts making me worried for Cass’s well being. 

On my way back around front, I slung my rifle from over my shoulder, the heavy cartridge in it meaning it would almost certainly shatter ceramic armor after a shot or two. I glanced at the building Cassidy was headed towards, seeing that the boards on the windows were partially disintegrated and ablaze with fire as a few more lasers flashed her way. 

I rounded the front of the white brick building, seeing another thug peeking out of the doorway with a humming laser rifle in his arms. Leaning around the side of the building, I took a shot at what little of him I could see. The bullet shattered the shoulder pauldron and knocked him hard into the doorjamb, his head smacking back against it. After working the lever quick as I could, I shot again, splintering the wood beside his head. He tried to recover, hefting his rifle, but his injured shoulder making him slow. His injury gave me enough time to shoot again. This shot blasted through half of his rifle, and the force alone almost made him drop the rifle, but with the heat shielding shot off, it burned his hand, so he hissed and dropped it. Before he could retreat into the Silver Rush, Cassidy’s slug slammed into his unarmored thigh, blasting through it and shattering his femur. He shrieked and collapsed, crawling inside. 

I took that opportunity to take off towards the other corner of the building, holding my rifle with one hand while I drew my pistol. I laid down some covering fire for myself as I ran, shooting four times towards the doorway with my pistol. Glancing inside as I passed, I saw three thugs inside scramble for cover. I holstered it after I passed the doorway, fumbling with my satchel to find the next bundle of dynamite. I set it down, making sure that the unshielded laser rifle on the ground didn’t burn the fuse strung between them. 

After placing the third bundle of dynamite, I spotted one of the thugs from inside peeking out. I hefted my rifle, but saw that I would be too late to shoot him as he already raised his, so I scrambled around the corner of the building. A red laser beam chased me around, flashing by my upper arm and leaving a red mark as just the radiation left a burn. Trusting Cass to protect me, I took off towards the fourth corner of the building, taking out the last bundle. Sure enough, I heard her shotgun go off a couple more times. 

As I placed the fourth bundle of dynamite, I turned towards a collapsed brick building near the Silver Rush, intending to take cover there before detonating. Apparently they’d only just figured out that they should storm us with their superior numbers, though, as Cass shot twice more, but not towards the man that just rounded the corner of the building with his plasma rifle lifted in my direction. I dashed for the collapsed building, shooting his way with my rifle. Thankfully, it must have thrown him off just enough, as the almost blindingly bright ball of plasma he sent my way flashed in front of me instead of splattering over me. 

I vaulted over a collapsed, waist high wall and dropped onto my ass behind it. Peeking over the wall, I saw the thug on this side of the Silver Rush, out of Cassidy’s line of fire. I heard shouted orders, and Jean-Baptiste’s booming voice bellowing, “Got you, cunts!” Cassidy’s shotgun went off again, and that same voice cursed. I grinned, despite the guy advancing on my position with the intention of melting my skull into the pavement. I knew that any capable fighter would have their weapon trained on my position to blast me when I showed my face again. So, instead of trying to shoot him, I took the little detonation plunger from my satchel, squinched my eyes shut with anticipation, and pushed it. 

The explosion hammered through my ribcage and threw me forward a bit, despite the cover. My ears rang from the power of the sound, and I blinked dust out of my eyes. Peeking over the top of the half wall I’d hid behind, I saw the man who shot at me on the ground several yards from where he advanced on me, his left arm and leg ripped from his body. He twitched, and screamed for a few seconds before quieting to whimpers. Looking past him, it looked like the dynamite did its job. The roof of the Silver Rush had collapsed in on itself, leaving behind a few stacks of upright white brick, but most of it totally destroyed. I cringed and cowered as a couple of explosions went off inside, some of their more unstable ordnance detonating. 

I stood, just as the man with the missing limbs let out a few more screams. I slung my rifle back over my shoulder and drew my pistol. Taking a few steps his way, he lifted his one hand, coughed up a bit of blood and let out in a raw scream, “Please don’t!” 

Shrugging, I said, “Sorry, man. You were working for the wrong folks.” Then I put a bullet in his head and watched for a moment as blood leaked from the hole. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Cassidy come around the ruined building. Gesturing at the ruins, I grinned and said, “Ain’t no kill like overkill, huh?”

She cracked half a grin, just for a moment, before it slid off her face in favor of a slight scowl. She looked at the ruins, hands on her hips. “It got the job done, but I wish they knew who did it to them. I wish they knew why they’re dying now. Wish I actually made Gloria eat her fucking hair, but it’s done now. Justice is served.” Her voice came out quiet and even, two things I didn’t normally associate with her. Fire crackled in the ruins, and dust still settled in clouds in the air. She shook her head and looked down, taking a couple steps over to avoid a pool of blood. “Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?” 

I stepped over the pool of blood and put an arm around Cassidy’s shoulders. She leaned into me, and though I felt an excitement that she was willing to do so, I also felt a shame. It took me a moment to realize that it was a shame for thinking of myself when she was the one hurting. Pointing at a building with flashing neon lights, I said, “The Atomic Wrangler’s over there. I’ve got a bed there, so I say we go drink up, and go to bed. And I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.” 

She turned to me and gave me a quick peck on the lips. I blinked rapidly, confused as she hadn’t been quite so forward with me before. Her crows’ feet crinkled further as she smiled and said, “Figured you deserve it, after what you’ve done for me.” I couldn’t help it, I winced. She furrowed her brow. “You ok? I figured you’d be pretty happy for a kiss right now.” I glanced at the man I’d shot in the head, and she followed my gaze. “What, you uncomfortable with the dead guy?”

Sighing, I shook my head and stuck my tongue in my cheek, stepping away from her and the dead man for a moment. “No, I just, it’s what you said. You kissed me because I helped you out, because I deserve it, and maybe I do, I don’t know. But I don’t want you to kiss me for that. I want you to kiss me because you want to.” I chuckled and thumbed at my chin. “You, uh, I’m not used to that feeling.”

She clapped me on the back and started walking me towards the Atomic Wrangler. “Well, let’s go get some cheap whiskey in us, wash up, and who knows what’ll happen then.” She leaned in towards my ear and whispered, “After all, it’s Vegas.” I shivered, grinned, and headed towards the Wrangler. 

*****

Mid afternoon at the Atomic Wrangler looked slow and a little depressing, but for the jitters as I came down from combat. A couple of drunkards sang an awful rendition of some swing song at other end of the bar from where I sat, a protectron with “Fisto” scrawled across the torso in white paint wandered around aimlessly, waiting for somebody to hire him out, a surprisingly put together guy in a pinstriped suit stood behind the bar, and in the other room, it looked like only one game of blackjack was going on. 

Cassidy stepped out of my room up on the second floor, putting her hat back over her bright red air. Her clothes looked a bit damp from when she’d washed them. I bathed before her, and grinned at her as she stepped down from the balcony. I leaned against the bar, and clenched my shaking fist. “Hey James, gimme a couple glasses of whiskey, one for me and one for her.” I pointed at Cass. 

As James, the guy behind the bar, set to pouring our drinks, he looked to Cass, asking, “On the rocks?”

Cass scoffed and waved a dismissive hand. “The fuck do I look like? If it’s not boiling, then no I don’t want ice in my fucking whiskey.” 

James raised a couple hands and Cass smirked at me, obviously not actually perturbed by his question. I thumbed over my shoulder at James and said, “Smart there, Cass. He puts an extra three caps on your tab if you ask for ice.” 

With a chuckle, James said, “Yeah, well, Cassidy here is the first person to turn down ice that isn’t a regular, so it’s a good strategy.” 

“Yeah, well, putting more than a single cube of ice in a glass of whiskey is a crime against alcohol everywhere.” Cassidy took the stool next to me. She shot me a smirking side eye as I sipped my warm whiskey. “It’ll melt after a bit, make it watered down. Can’t have that.” 

I tilted my drink a little bit her way. “Shouldn’t knock an iced drink, though. Not when it gets up to three hundred degrees out there.” 

Cass rolled her eyes and guzzled her drink, barely swishing it long enough to taste it before it went down her throat. That weary look in her eyes started to fade as the whiskey took hold, and she said, “Gimme another one, Jimmy. Or better yet, leave the bottle.” 

He nodded and left the hefty whiskey bottle on the bar. “It’s on her tab.” He nodded towards me and went to go shoo the singing drunks away from the bar, as three more people arrived, wearing the silly pompadours of the Kings gang. I drained the rest of my drink, set my glass down and said, “Hey Cass, let’s head up, alright?” 

She quirked an eyebrow. “Now? I ain’t in the bottle yet, so I’m not sure what I’d be comfortable with doing with you-”

I gritted my teeth. “Then let’s take the fucking bottle.” I stood up and grabbed the whiskey bottle by the neck. 

From behind me, one of the Kings said, “Maria! That is you, right?” I rolled my eyes and turned around. 

“The fuck do you want, Pacer?” 

He thumbed over his shoulder towards the door. “That was you, right? The Silver Rush getting demolished?” 

Cass stood up, folding her arms and taking a few steps towards the greasy King in front of me. “That was us, yeah. The Van Graffs fucked with the wrong caravaner.” 

A slimy grin crossed Pacer’s face, and he reached for his pocket. My hand hovered over my pistol, in case he was drawing on us, and I watched as the Kings behind him slipped switchblades out of their pockets. Pacer raised his eyebrows as he took out a jingling pouch of caps and counted a few out, putting them on the bar. “Chill out, now. I just wanted to buy that bottle for you, since you killed that fuck Jean-Baptiste.” He stowed his caps. “Now, why don’t you introduce me to your pretty friend?” 

Cass scowled. “Cassidy. Cass to my friends. Cassidy to you.” 

He chuckled, glancing at his friends over his shoulder. “Ooh! Fiery, huh? I like it.” He took a step towards her, and I put a hand on his chest. 

“Back off, Pacer,” I said, and pushed him back a step. 

He snarled and slapped me across the cheek hard. I saw it coming and turned my face so that it would only hurt instead of injure. “That’s for killing that fine piece of ass, Gloria. Now-”

Cass’s fist smashed into his ear before he could finish his thought, knocking him onto the table beside him. “Don’t you lay a fucking finger on her, or I’ll kick your asses into next week.” I set the bottle back on the bar and looked at her. She wore that fire on her face like when she found the Legion coin in my pack, waking me up with a shotgun blast, like when she found the dead Van Graff thug by her caravan. Licking my lips, I grinned and turned to Pacer. 

Pacer looked at James Garrett behind the bar scowling at him, at Cass with her blazing eyes, and at the bouncer in the corner ready to break us up. He beckoned his guys and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” As they headed towards the door, he looked back over his shoulder and said, “Watch yourself, Cass.” 

After they left, I slapped the bar and shouted to Cass, “Fuck, you’re awesome!” 

She smirked and grabbed the bottle. “Thanks for the reminder. Now let’s go; we’ve got a bottle to kill.” Taking me by the hand, she dragged me upstairs. 

Behind us, James shouted, “Try not to be too loud!” I flipped him off. 

My bedroom in the Atomic Wrangler wasn’t too nice, but it was a whole hell of a lot nicer than most of the places I’d slept in the Mojave. A double bed that only sagged a little, clean sheets, a wardrobe without resident moths, a clean toilet. Cass took a deep swig of the bottle and plopped down on the bed, kicking off her boots and holey socks. My grin broadened. “You want me to lock the door?” She nodded, so I locked the door and joined her on the bed, kicking my own shoes off. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I leaned into her and let out a contented sigh. “You know, you were right. Smelling soap and whiskey on you instead of trail dust and sweat and whiskey is nice.” 

“Fucking told you so.” She took another swig of whiskey and passed me the bottle. I slurped it, letting out a burp and a chuckle as the warmth spread through me. I squeezed my hand into a tight fist and then released it, the shaking slowing to a stop. Cass looked down at me. “You good?”

I nodded. “Are you?” Looking up from on her shoulder, the fire in her eyes had faded a bit as they watched the door, thought looking like they focused somewhere beyond it. She looked back down to me. 

“I’ve still lost everything I spent my life building.” After another quick swig of whiskey, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, “I avenged my dead, but they’re still dead. And I signed away my name to Crimson Caravans, and I feel like there ain’t been a whole lot of change for me since I was getting shitfaced that afternoon at the Mojave Outpost when you walked up to me.” Shaking her head, she sighed with a rueful smile. “And yet I feel like everything’s different. Now I’m not just building the caravans as much as possible just to build them. Now I’m shooting for someone I give a shit about.”

Then she leaned down and kissed me. Tenderly at first, then she set down the bottle on the nightstand, and the chapped whiskey taste of her lips went up in flames. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and mine into hers, each of us desperate to get as much of the other as possible. She pushed me onto my back, leaning on one hand beside my head and the other running through my fuzzy hair. My hands ran up her back, clutching her plaid shirt and pulling her into me. 

I pushed her off me, sitting up, after a couple minutes of making out. Leaning on her side, she looked ready to growl and bowl me over, but I held up a hand, saying, “Hang on a second, I don’t wanna be squishing your tits into the armor.” I took a few seconds to unbuckle the ceramic plating on my body and drop it next to the bed with a heavy thud, while Cass stroked my thigh. 

She shoved me back over then, and I had just enough time to let out a surprised chuckle before she mashed her lips back into mine, running a hand up under my tee. Her mouth snaked around to my neck as she pushed my shirt up, making me gasp as she nibbled and sucked on the sensitive skin there. Having her hands on my ribs and her lips sucking on my neck set me to breathing heavily, heat coiling in my abdomen. Suddenly, she squeezed a hand under my sports bra, pinching the nipple there and making me gasp louder. I slipped my hands under the waistband of her pants and squeezed her butt. Doing so pulled her pelvis against mine, and I felt the warmth of her crotch through her jeans in sharp contrast to the air conditioned room. 

So distracted by her firm ass in my hands as I was, I almost missed her pulling my shirt off over my head and undoing my bra. I unbuttoned her shirt as she opened my belt and jeans, pulling them down around my hips. She slipped her fingers under my panties, finding my clit after a moment and making me gasp as she gently squeezed it between two fingers. Burying my fingers into her red hair, I saw the blazing in her eyes just before they closed and we kissed again. A few seconds into our kiss, she squeezed my clit again, and my jaw unconsciously clenched around her lip. I let her go after a second, blushing and said, “Sorry about that.”

She grinned, the whiskey fueled fire still in her eyes, and said, “I believe that’s the first time I’ve heard that word come out of your lips.” Then she brought her mouth to my neck and sucked, at the same time pushing a finger into me and stroking, and I moaned her name. I bucked my pelvis against her hand and she fucked another finger into me, stretching me just enough to be pleasant as I clutched her head against my neck. 

Her free hand kneaded my breast and my free, once again shaking hand undid her bra as she brought me closer and closer to my peak over a couple minutes. She gnawed my neck and pressed her thumb against my clit and suddenly I was crashing through orgasm, my fingernails digging into her back. 

She sat back up after she’d finished me off, grinning, and licked off her fingers before wiping them on the sheets. “What was that you were moaning? Jesus, Mary and Joseph? I’ve heard of the first guy, but I don’t know Mary or Joseph.”

I sighed and wiped the sweat from my forehead, still recovering, my thighs twitching. “Mary and Joseph were Jesus’s parents. It’s a thing that Catholics say.” 

As I leaned forward, about to kiss her, she said, “You’re a weird girl, Maria.” Then I cupped her cheek and kissed her, laying her on her back. She breathed a bit more heavily as I moved to her neck and pulled her bra the rest of the way off, rolling one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger. Slowly, I kissed my way down her neck, between her opened shirt to lavish her other nipple with my mouth, moving around her rose pendant. 

After a couple minutes of this, she said, “You know, you can be a bit rougher with me.” Then I gave her nipple a sharp, gentle nip, and she gasped, saying, “Ok, that’s about right.” I chuckled and stroked her ribs with my free hand, moving it down to between her legs. Feeling her up through her pants, I climbed on top of her and straddled her. 

Unbuttoning her pants, I started to slip my left hand down under her pants, and she winced. I pulled my hand back and lifted it up, looking at the index finger that missed the last joint on it. “You know, before I lost this bit of my finger, I was better at fingering girls with my left hand than my right, even though I’m right handed. Crazy, huh?” I grinned up at her, and she chuckled. Instead, I kissed my way down her belly and pulled her jeans down to her knees. 

I kissed her inner thigh, transitioning to a firm bite after moment, making her let out a low, pleased moan. It took me a moment to get used to how much hairier she was than the prostitutes I had been sleeping with, but seeing her face and hearing her moans as I stroked her through her panties, I found myself unperturbed by it. After pulling down her panties, I kissed my way to the warm, beautiful place between her thighs and put my practiced lips and tongue to work. 

As I ate her out, I fondled her breasts and watched her face. Before long, she too was sweating despite the air conditioning, letting out moans and gasps that made me giggle and grin. It took longer for me to bring her to orgasm than it took her to do for me, and she came more quietly, though with her thighs squeezing my jaw, as befitting the tough old bitch. I crawled back up to her face, wiped my lips on the back of my hand, and kissed her again. About that time, I realized that she was the first person that I made love to since Oriana left me. 

We took a break from kissing after a bit to go wipe ourselves off with the towels we’d used after bathing. I returned to the bed first, and watched her naked body move. “You know you’re gorgeous, right?” 

She finished wiping the effluvia from between her legs and scoffed at me. “I hoped you would think that. You know, I think this is the most sober I’ve ever been when fucking a girl. Usually I get more shitfaced and it’s just because the girl’s hotter than any of the guys in the bar.”

I turned onto my side and put my head up in a pose I’d seen the higher class prostitutes do when they wanted to be seductive, putting my bony body on display. “I appreciate the compliment. James Garrett looks pretty alright.” 

Cass chuckled and hopped in bed next to me. I put an arm under her neck so I could hold her as she looked at her upturned palm. “I’ve still got dust from the explosion under my fingernails.” She reached over the side of the bed and produced a flip knife from her bag. She started picking the undersides of her nails. 

After a couple minutes, I laid my head on her shoulder. A question that had been bubbling inside of me finally found its way to my lips, and I asked, “So, what’s next for Rose of Sharon Cassidy?” 

She closed the knife, having finished cleaning her nails, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders with a kind smile. “Figure I’d stick with you. Maybe help you bust that Joana chick out of Gomorrha. Going to need someone to watch your back out here, aren’t you?” 

Wrapping my other arm across her, I cuddled into her and closed my eyes, feeling sleep approaching. “I’m glad that it’ll be you.” I fell asleep quickly, feeling more secure in her arms than I had in a long time.

*****

I woke up much more quickly, when a boot knocked the door off its hinges and sent it slamming into the floor. In the doorway I saw a figure holding a shotgun. My eyes were too bleary to make out more details. I snatched the sheets on the bed, throwing them up before us to obscure us as Cass lunged for the guns on her side of the bed. 

The person in the doorway had already taken aim by the time I threw up the covers, so the obscuring only helped a little bit as he pulled the trigger. The bang deafened us, and the pellets made Cass’s thigh explode in a spray of blood. I couldn’t think about that, though, diving off the side of the bed. Ringing in my ears kept me from hearing Cass screaming, and by the time the sheets fell from the air, I had my pistol in my hands and aimed for the doorway. I dumped three bullets into his midsection, folding him over. Instead of falling forward, though, he started to straighten up, and I realized that he must have been wearing armor. Naked and sprayed with blood, I charged him. He stumbled back around the side of the wall. 

He had his shotgun pointed towards me as I came around, so I seized the still hot barrel of the gun and forced it away from me. As I screamed and spat in his face, I lifted my pistol. He headbutted me and ripped his shotgun out of my grip, knocking me back a couple steps. He pumped the action, and as he did so, I pointed my gun at his unarmored arms and pulled the trigger a couple times. Stumbling away from me, he dropped the gun in his freshly perforated arms and started to run. Ignoring the blood and pain dribbling from my nose, I took aim at his leg and shot three times, hitting his left one twice and forcing him down to one knee. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed people coming up the stairs. 

I pushed the guy up against the railing and put my pistol under his chin. He hugged his chest, staining his kevlar vest with his bloodied arms. “Who do you work for?” He grit his teeth and let out a sob, so I seized his right arm, shoving my thumb into the hole in his forearm. He let out a groan, barely audible beneath the ringing in my ears. 

“Alice McLafferty!” He gasped out as I squeezed more blood out of him. “Please, please, Alice McLafferty hired me.” 

“Thank you.” I shot him in the head until my pistol’s slide locked back, letting me know it was empty. His head was pulp over the floor and the bar below by the time I’d finished. 

As I stepped back from him, Francine Garrett in her pantsuit stepped up beside me and said, “Jesus Christ. I take it he hurt that redhead you’re with?” 

I nodded. “You send someone to fetch the Followers of the Apocalypse yet?”

“Yeah.” She followed me as I stepped into the bedroom, blood staining my feet and ankles. 

Cass sat up on the bed, putting pressure on her wound and staring at the doorway with teeth grit. I dropped the pistol by my holster on the floor and knelt beside Cass, saying, “They sent for doctors already.” I winced as I looked at the wound. Between the blood welling up between Cass’s fingers, I saw mangled meat that looked like it’d been put through a grinder twice over. “Um, I don’t know what to do, since we’re out of stims.” 

Between gritted teeth, she growled, “Get me some fucking Med-X.”

I nodded and hustled to follow orders. “Squeeze one of your fists for me so I can find a vein easier.” 

“Yeah.” I returned after drawing a dose of the drug into a clean syringe. She had her left arm, smeared with blood as it was, extended to the left. I took a corner of a pillowcase and wiped some of the warm red stuff off of her so I could get a look at one of the veins popping in her forearm. My hands shook dreadfully, to the point I had to take a moment with a deep breath to calm the shaking so I wouldn’t puncture clean through her vein. I administered the Med-X and withdrew the syringe, tossing it back into my satchel. 

I pulled a few bandages out of my satchel, putting pressure on Cass’s wound. I watched her sweating, panting face, trying to suppress the urge to go and mutilate the corpse of the man that hurt her further than I already had. Feeling the strength of her hands pressing on the bandages begin to wane, and seeing her eyes fluttering after a couple minutes, I said, “Come on, Cass, stay awake. I know it’s hard, and it hurts, but you’ve gotta keep pressing on the wound, ok?”

Her scowl deepened, and her neck started to go limp, but she shouted and hefted her head back upright. “Where the fuck’s the doctor?!”

I looked up to the doorway where Francine Garrett stood just as she stepped to the side and a young woman with a spiked green mohawk stepped into the room, a hefty bag in one hand and a blood spattered white doctor’s coat on. “I’m here.” I stood up, expecting her to ask me out of the way. The doctor swept the sheets with the hole in them to the floor, setting her bag on the stained mattress. 

“I dosed her with Med-X a minute or so ago,” I said.

She nodded and started pulling on a couple of gloves. “How much?”

“Uh, a lot?”

She grimaced, glanced at the track marks on my bare arm, and said, “At least you know what you’re doing.” She put a surgical mask on over her face.

“So, can’t you just shoot her with a bunch of stims? I’ll pay you, do whatever it takes.” I swallowed hard, knowing that doctors out in places like this would often ask difficult favors if their patients couldn’t pay. 

To my surprise, the doctor shook her head. “No payment necessary. Now, let’s move these bandages to see if I can just remove the pellets and shoot her with stims.” She peeled the bandages away, making the almost catatonically sedated Cass hiss. “Shoot.” 

I furrowed my brow. “What? What is it?” 

“The shot went at her femur, splintering it. If I had state of the art equipment, a full team of surgeons and an Auto-Doc with me, I’d be able to replace it with a titanium rod, but, well.” She dug in her back for a moment before coming up with a length of white cotton and a steel rod. She started wrapping it around Cass’s thigh up by her hip, with powerful, almost violent movements. After a few seconds, she had a tourniquet wrapped around her leg, the rod holding the knot in place. As I realized what she was tying it for, I felt the color drain from my face. “I’m afraid we’ll have to amputate. A stimpak with all the lead and bone fragments in her would make things worse.” 

She pulled a doctor’s hacksaw out of her bag and I swallowed the vomit welling up from my stomach. With her free hand, the doctor took my wrist and placed my hand firmly on Cass’s knee, saying, “You’ll have to hold her down hard. Keep that hand there, and when I tell you to, press down as hard as you can.” Then she laid her forearm across Cass’s pelvis, saying, “Put your other arm here, as I have mine, and lean your entire weight across her pelvis. Make sure it’s on her pelvis, or you might injure something internal.” 

I nodded and followed instructions. Looking up at Cass’s face, she wore a blank, sweaty expression. I couldn’t tell if she knew what was about to happen or not, but I said, “I’m sorry,” either way. Quickly, I pulled a pillowcase off one of the pillows, balled it up, and gave it to her to bite down on.

“Ok, we’re going to get started now, in three, two,” she said, and I leaned down harder, “one.” Cass lurched hard when the doctor started, cutting down to the bone with one clean movement. I held her down, squeezing my eyes shut, feeling water welling up there. Cass wailed through the pillowcase, and for the first time since I was a girl in New Reno, watching my mother torture to death the man that would have raped me, I told myself that this was God’s plan, as my father would have told me. 

The doctor had just finished sawing through her bone when Cass stopped thrashing and hammering her fist against the bed. The leg came loose from the rest of Cass a short few seconds later, and the doctor said, “You did a good job.” I opened my eyes and saw Cass’s open leg, all the meat and blood vessels weakly leaking blood, and I turned my head to the side. The doctor set to folding the flap of meat over her leg and stapling it shut. I stood up straight, backing away. 

After backing away, I looked at Cass, her half shut eyes and the pillowcase fallen out of her agape mouth, and I said, “She’s not moving, doctor.” The doctor finished putting in a piece of flexible surgical tubing into the stump so that it could leak into a metal bowl set on the bed and finally looked up. 

When she saw Cass’s face, she said, “She probably just passed out from the pain. Still, I shouldn’t, er, well.” She peeled one of the gloves off her fingers and said, “Wait, shit, she’s not breathing.” She put a couple fingers up against Cass’s jaw, feeling for a pulse. “Heart’s not beating.” 

I felt my entire body trembling, squeezing my fists tight enough to put my nails into my palms. “What the fuck does that mean,” I said as she snatched a flashlight out of her bag. “Is she gone?”

She shined the light in Cass’s eyes, then turned to me. In those brown eyes, her brow slightly knit, the rest of her face hidden behind the surgical mask, I had my answer. “I’m sorry.” 

There was a ringing in my ears, beyond the usual tinnitus. A pain radiated from my chest, around my heart. In the silence of the doctor, and Francine Garrett and some curious prostitute watching me from the doorway, I heard the radio still playing down in the common room. As Johnny Cash sang about a fiery ring, I realized I was crying. 

The doctor took my hand in hers, and I felt an urge to beat her face, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “The Followers can help you make funeral arrangements. If you’re tight on money, there’s cheaper options, and you can dig the grave yourself if you want. I’m told it can be therapeutic.” She gathered her things and started to leave. 

After a couple minutes, I realized that I’d collapsed into a chair and started to get dressed, feeling as though I was out of my own body. Salty tears and snot leaked into my mouth, and I wiped it off with the collar of my shirt. 

I don’t remember much of what happened over the next couple days, being out of my body normally and out of my body high on Med-X, but I remember a few things. I remember giving Cass’s body a kiss. I remember taking her rose pendant and wrapping it around my own neck. I remember a radio broadcast in the Atomic Wrangler about an expedition out of the Mojave, to a place called Zion. I remember thinking that’d be a good place for someone like me. 

I remember watching the Followers of the Apocalypse lower my second beloved into the dirt in a cheap box. I remember saying something over her grave. I probably got it wrong, but this is how it’s supposed to go: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” I remember that I decided, as I said the Lord’s Prayer over Rose of Sharon Cassidy’s grave, that I was done with revenge, and that I would leave the punishment of Alice McLafferty to God. I remember thinking that if I killed her, I would never stop killing. 

I never would.


End file.
